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CONTINUING REPRESSION BY THE

VIETNAMESE GOVERNMENT

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, 

GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND 

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JUNE 4, 2013

Serial No. 113–70

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/ or

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

MATT SALMON, Arizona 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

TOM COTTON, Arkansas 

PAUL COOK, California 

GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

TREY RADEL, Florida 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

TED S. YOHO, Florida 

LUKE MESSER, Indiana 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

JUAN VARGAS, California 

BRADLEY S. SCHNEIDER, Illinois 

JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III, Massachusetts 

AMI BERA, California 

ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California 

GRACE MENG, New York 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas

AMY PORTER, Chief of Staff THOMAS SHEEHY, Staff Director

JASON STEINBAUM, Democratic Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

KAREN BASS, California 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

AMI BERA, California 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

The Honorable Anh ‘‘Joseph’’ Cao (former Member of Congress) ........................ 6

Nguyen Dinh Thang, Ph.D., executive director, Boat People SOS ...................... 16

Ms. Holly Ngo, victim of property confiscation ..................................................... 27

The Venerable Danh Tol, victim of religious persecution .................................... 33

Mr. John Sifton, Asia Advocacy director, Human Rights Watch ......................... 51

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

The Honorable Anh ‘‘Joseph’’ Cao: Prepared statement ....................................... 10

Nguyen Dinh Thang, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ................................................. 19

Ms. Holly Ngo: Prepared statement ....................................................................... 29

The Venerable Danh Tol: Prepared statement ...................................................... 35

Mr. John Sifton: Prepared statement .................................................................... 54

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 78

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 79

Nguyen Dinh Thang, Ph.D.: Material submitted for the record .......................... 80

(1)

CONTINUING REPRESSION BY THE 

VIETNAMESE GOVERNMENT 

TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH,

GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:46 p.m., in room 

2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher H. Smith 

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. SMITH. The hearing will come to order and good afternoon 

to everyone. 

I do apologize for starting late. We had a series of hearings on 

the floor which made it impossible for all of us to be here, so thank 

you for your patience. 

I would like to begin by recognizing the many distinguished leaders who are joining us in conjunction with the Vietnamese-American Meetup. 

Many thanks to all of you for taking the time to come to Washington, to meet with your representatives here in Congress and for 

joining us here for this hearing that will look at some of the many 

human rights abuses being committed by the Vietnamese Government. 

This is the second hearing held by this subcommittee, which handles human rights, on Vietnam this year. We’ll be taking a greater 

in-depth examination of some of the fundamental human rights 

violations that we discussed at our first hearing in April, particularly land confiscations in the context of religious and ethnic persecution. 

Although the relationship between the United States and Vietnam improved substantially in 1995 when relations were normalized, the human rights situation in Vietnam did not improve. 

As the U.S. has upgraded Vietnam’s trade status, the Vietnamese Government has continued to violate a wide range of fundamental human rights. To cite just one example, despite the State 

Department’s decision in 2006 to remove Vietnam from the list of 

Countries of Particular Concern, or CPC, as designated pursuant 

to the International Religious Freedom Act, Vietnam continues to 

be among the worst violators of religious freedom in the world. 

According to the United States Commission for International Religious Freedom’s 2012 annual report,

2

‘‘The Government of Vietnam continues to control all religious 

communities, restrict and penalize independent religious practices severely, and repress individuals and groups viewed as 

challenging its authority.’’

The commission concludes that Vietnam should be designated a 

CPC country. It appears that the State Department decided to 

allow political considerations to trump the facts and the brutality 

of Vietnam’s record of religious persecution. 

In the department’s latest International Religious Freedom report that was released on May 20th, Vietnam once again was a 

glaring omission in the list of Countries of Particular Concern. 

Compared to the disturbing clarity of the U.S. Commission on 

International Religious Freedom report, or USCIRF, the State Department’s description of the state of religious freedom in Vietnam 

is a whitewash and an extreme disservice to the truth about the 

religious persecution that is prevalent in that country. 

I repeat my past appeals to the administration to follow the letter as well as the spirit of the International Religious Freedom Act 

and hold Vietnam to account as a Country of Particular Concern. 

I met courageous religious leaders during my last trip to Vietnam who were struggling for fundamental human rights in their 

country. Unfortunately, many of them, including Father Ly and the 

Most Venerable Thich Quang Do, remain wrongly detained today. 

There are disturbing reports that Father Ly is suffering poor 

health. Leaders of religious organizations are not the only ones victimized by the Vietnamese Government on account of their faith. 

Individuals in small communities are also targeted by the regime. 

Witnesses and experts at our past hearings have recounted the 

brutality suffered in 2010 by Con Dau parishioners at the hands 

of police in the course of a funeral procession. 

This persecution continues to this day in response to the villagers’ opposition to the illegal and unjust confiscation of their 

land. 

Today’s hearing will take a closer examination of ethnic and religious persecution in Vietnam, particularly through the government’s practice of confiscating land. The government has unlawfully taken property belonging to families that include many Vietnamese-Americans. 

Not only is land forcibly taken but any compensation provided by 

the government is far below the fair market value. If the rightful 

owners do not accept what is offered or show resistance, security 

forces are dispatched to overwhelm any opposition and brutally 

suppress them. 

The arbitrary taking of real property not only violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but even Vietnam’s own domestic laws. To address this and numerous other violations of 

human rights by the Vietnamese regime, I have reintroduced the 

Vietnam Human Rights Act, H.R. 1897. 

This legislation, co-sponsored by a large number of members including our chairman, Chairman Royce, and members of the bipartisan Congressional Vietnam Caucus, has been reported out of this 

subcommittee and is awaiting consideration, hopefully soon, by the 

full committee. 

3

This legislation seeks to promote freedom and democracy in Vietnam by stipulating that the United States can increase its nonhumanitarian assistance to Vietnam above the 2012 levels only 

when the President certifies that the Government of Vietnam has 

made substantial progress in establishing democracy and promoting human rights including respecting freedom of religion and 

releasing all religious prisoners, respecting rights to freedom of expression, assembly and association, releasing all political prisoners, 

independent journalists and labor activists, repealing and revising 

laws that criminalize peaceful dissent, independent media, 

unsanctioned religious activity and nonviolent demonstrations in 

accordance with international human rights standards, respecting 

the human rights of members of all ethnic groups, and taking all 

appropriate steps including prosecution of government officials who 

have any complicity in human trafficking. 

It also calls on the administration to redesignate Vietnam as a 

Country of Particular Concern for religious freedom and takes 

measures to overcome the Vietnamese Government’s jamming of 

Radio Free Asia and oppose Vietnam’s membership on the U.N. 

Human Rights Council which will be voted on this fall. 

It also seeks to help those who have been denied the access to 

our refugee programs, many of whom, because of corruption, never 

got the break that they were entitled to. 

We are fortunate, again, to have a distinguished panel of witnesses here today to discuss these critical issues. I, and I know my 

colleagues, look forward to their testimony. 

I yield to my friend and colleague, the ranking member, Ms. 

Bass. 

Ms. BASS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

In April, we previously held a hearing on Vietnam and the many 

human rights challenges faced by the Vietnamese people. 

In my remarks from that day, I noted that while there have been 

some advances in the government’s crackdown on various freedoms, this is no means widespread. 

Human rights organizations including those that have presented 

to this committee in the past and those that are here today continue to document the full extent of the government’s efforts to undermine and trample on the rights of its citizens. 

Mr. Chairman, I wish to yield my remaining time to open to my 

colleague, Representative Alan Lowenthal, who has a large constituency of Vietnamese. 

Mr. LOWENTHAL. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Ranking 

Member Bass, for allowing me to address the subcommittee on this 

very important issue today. 

First, I want to begin by thanking all the distinguished—all the 

members of this distinguished panel who are testifying before us 

today. Congressman Joseph Cao, it is an honor to see you again. 

I last saw you at the last hearing and I commend your dedication 

to upholding human rights in Vietnam, both in and out of Congress, and I’m happy, again, as I mentioned to see you once again 

before this committee. 

Ms. Holly Ngo, thank you for coming from all the way from Garden Grove, which is part of my district, to highlight the very, very 

important issue of the expropriation of property in Vietnam by the 

4

Vietnamese Government, an issue that affects literally thousands 

of Vietnamese-Americans. 

It’s really the dedication of all of you on this panel and all of us 

that are in this room that continue to shine a spotlight on human 

rights violations in Vietnam and pressure the Government of Vietnam to put an end to these violations. 

This past weekend I hosted the United States Ambassador to 

Vietnam, Mr. David Shear, at a town hall meeting in my district. 

My meetings with Ambassador Shear reassured me that the United 

States continues its commitment to human rights improvements in 

Vietnam. 

Meanwhile, I’m also very much reminded by my constituents how 

important this issue is to them. I’m inspired—you know, one of the 

things it’s not just those that were boat people who escaped from 

Vietnam but I am very inspired by the thousands of young Vietnamese-Americans who were born and raised in the United States 

who wish to fight for freedom and democracy in the land of their 

parents and their grandparents. I find that very, very important 

and impressive to hear that commitment. 

But, sadly, we hear today that human rights violations in Vietnam continue. They continue to increase as the government targets 

groups that include students, religious leaders, ethnic minorities, 

democracy activists and even United States citizens who offer their 

help are targeted. 

The United States and Vietnam in recent years have become 

closer trading partners and both have benefited from the increasing 

economic ties between our countries. 

As the people of Vietnam enjoy the benefits of our shared prosperity, the Vietnamese Government should also join us in recognizing the freedom and rights of every human being. 

As we continue to negotiate the Trans Pacific Partnership and 

we continue further economic ties with Vietnam, I believe we must 

insist that the government in Vietnam improve its record on 

human rights violations. 

We must work together to build a lasting relationship with Vietnam that is based upon respect for the basic freedoms for all, and 

I yield back my time and thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Meadows. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for 

being with us today. Some of you, welcome back. It’s good to see 

you again and certainly as we look at Vietnam it is, one, a large 

trading partner of the United States. It’s growing larger by the 

day. 

Obviously, the Vietnamese Government has been very involved 

in ongoing negotiations over the Trans Pacific Partnership, TPP, 

and is also applying to be a recipient of the Generalized System of 

Preferences. 

The United States is already Vietnam’s largest export market. 

Both the TPP and the GSP status would grow that relationship. 

But there are certain standards that we require of countries who 

want our business and we must ensure that Vietnam is living up 

to those standards. 

5

Vietnam is still a nonmarket economy with a large number of 

state-owned enterprises, as we’ve heard here before, and we also 

heard here in testimony before this subcommittee we’ve heard 

about Vietnam officials that have worked to keep international 

human trafficking rings operational, something that we cannot tolerate. 

Ethnic and religious minorities still face persecution on a regular 

basis. Vietnam claims actual ownership of all land and land confiscation is often used to play favorites. 

We cannot move forward with a GSP status as long as these 

issues are unsettled and Vietnam is unwilling to seriously address 

human rights issues and I look forward to hearing your testimony 

on how we can do that. 

And with that, I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much and welcome to Mr. Stockman. 

I’d like to now introduce our distinguished panelists, beginning 

first with Congressman Anh Cao, who was born in Vietnam at the 

age of eight, was able to escape to the United States with his siblings. 

After learning English he did well in school and earned an undergraduate and Master’s degree before teaching philosophy and 

ethics in New Orleans. Congressman Cao went on to earn his law 

degree and work for Boat People SOS to help poor Vietnamese and 

other minorities. 

He lost his home and office in Hurricane Katrina but helped lead 

his community as it started to rebuild. In 2008, he became the first 

Vietnamese-American elected to the U.S. Congress representing 

Louisiana’s Second Congressional District, and I can say having 

worked so closely with him that he is and was then as a Member 

of Congress an outstanding champion of human rights. So welcome 

back, Congressman Cao. 

We’ll then hear from Dr. Nguyen Dinh Thang, who came to the 

United States as a refugee from Vietnam in 1979. After earning his 

Ph.D. he began volunteering with Boat People SOS in 1988. 

Now serving as the head of Boat People SOS, Dr. Thang has 

worked for the past 25 years on virtually every human rights issue 

as it relates to Vietnam but especially on the resettling and helping 

to gain access to the U.S. tens of thousands of boat people and 

other refugees who escaped from Vietnam. 

And I can say parenthetically that when the Clinton administration wanted to send back and close the CPA, the Comprehensive 

Plan of Action, and say they’re all going back there, they’re economic migrants, they’re not true refugees, it was Dr. Thang who 

came to this committee and to me and to my staff, Ambassador Joseph Rees and said we believe that tens of thousands of true refugees have been improperly screened out and are going back to new 

economic zones or to the gulag and will be mistreated. He said that 

they need to be re-reviewed and reassessed because they are refugees. As a result of his intervention we held four hearings in my 

committee. 

I offered an amendment that said no money of the U.S. will be 

used to forcibly repatriate any of those 40,000. The administration 

agreed and sent U.S. adjudicators and Embassy folks to refugee 

people to reevaluate and 20,000 plus people came to the United 

6

States, and it’s all become of Dr. Thang. So thank you so very 

much for that. He’s also the leader on fighting human trafficking. 

We’ll then hear from the Venerable Danh Tol, who was born in 

1981 in Vietnam and became a Buddhist monk in 1996. He continued his Buddhist education until ’07 when he led a peaceful demonstration to demand religious freedom. 

For leading this demonstration he was jailed and he was tortured 

until he was released almost 2 years later following pressure from 

the international community. 

After his release he was granted refugee status and resettled 

abroad. Since 2010, he has met with many human rights organizations to speak about religious persecution and especially against 

the Khmer Krom indigenous people. Welcome to the Venerable 

Danh Tol. 

We’ll then hear from Ms. Holly Ngo, who escaped from Vietnam 

by boat and arrived in the Philippines in 1978. In 1980, she joined 

her mother and other family members in the United States, went 

on to earn a Master’s degree in 1990. 

She has been an IT professional for 27 years and has done volunteer work in the local Vietnamese community in Southern California. Recently, she joined the fight against human trafficking of 

Vietnamese to various countries and we certainly welcome that important advocacy. 

Her family was a victim of multiple waves and forms of property 

confiscation by the Government of Vietnam. 

Then we’ll hear from Mr. John Sifton, who is the Advocacy Director for Asia at Human Rights Watch where he focuses on South 

and Southeast Asia. 

He has extensive experience doing international human rights 

work with a focus on Asia, but he has also worked on issues related 

to human trafficking, terrorism as well as refugees. 

Mr. Sifton has travelled to Vietnam where he has investigated 

the human rights situation and other developments and written extensively about that. 

He works with a wide range of government officials from many 

countries to provide policy advice and raise awareness of Vietnam’s 

human rights record. Mr. Sifton, welcome to you as well. 

I’d like to now go to Congressman Cao. He is recognized. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ANH ‘‘JOSEPH’’ CAO 

(FORMER MEMBER OF CONGRESS) 

Mr. CAO. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Bass and esteemed 

members of the subcommittee, again I would like to thank you all 

for your interest and for you all being the voice of the VietnameseAmerican community here in the United States. 

As you all know, the history of Vietnam and the history of Vietnamese-Americans is a history bathed in tears, a history of unbearable suffering but also a history with a proclamation Of hope. 

April 30, 1975, was the day of infamy for the millions of Vietnamese whose future was dashed when their freedom was extinguished by the brutal assault on South Vietnam by Communist 

forces in blatant violation of the 1973 Paris Peace Accord. 

Having known or faced Communist cruelty, thousands of Vietnamese left their homes and family, climbing and clambering over 

7

one another to fight for space on that last plane, on that last boat 

to escape imminent atrocities. 

What transpired in Vietnam after the Communist takeover could 

only be described by analogously linking the tragedy of Vietnam to 

such unconscionable events in human history as the Holocaust, the 

Killing Fields and the Great Purge. 

In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, the Communist government arrested and forcefully detained hundreds of thousands of 

former military personnel who were loyal to the Republic of South 

Vietnam and threw them into Nazi-style concentration camps along 

with thousands of political dissidents. 

Viewing religion as an existential threat to Communist orthodoxy, churches and temples were shut down and religious leaders 

were arrested and sent to prison like common criminals. 

Economic policy lacking scientific and philosophic justification 

were implemented with devastating effects as countless of thousands were evicted from their homes and sent to the new economic 

zones where many died of malaria and other deadly diseases. 

Facing starvation from ill-conceived economic policies, over 1 million Vietnamese left their home and country and set sail for the 

high seas, facing pirates, storms and death to seek freedom and a 

new future in foreign lands. 

It is estimated that over 300,000 of these boat people perished 

in the oceans of the world. However, many successfully escaped 

and resettled in the United States. Through the generosity of the 

U.S. Government and its people, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese were able to adjust to a new culture and become productive 

citizens. 

I am one of the many thousands who benefited from this generosity. I can recall very vividly and endearingly an elderly couple 

in Goshen, Indiana, who I would come to call Mamoo and Papoo, 

driving me to school, taking me to shopping and buying me my 

very first snow sled. 

I along with thousands of Vietnamese became U.S. citizens for 

one simple reason—to defend the Constitution of the United States 

and in return be defended by the same Constitution. 

Vietnamese-Americans now invoke this Constitution and respectfully request this Congress to protect them against the illegal expropriation of the land left behind when they fled the evils of Communism. 

Mr. Chairman, to make the story short, on April 4, 1977, the 

Communist Republic of Vietnam, SRV, issued an executive order 

placing the properties of Vietnamese who fled Vietnam under temporary state administration. 

Then in 1980, the SRV declared through its constitution that 

land belongs to the entire people with the state as the representative owner, thereby declaring in principle its policy to nationalize 

all land. 

On December 29, 1987, the National Assembly proclamated Vietnam’s land law to implement this new policy, placing all land 

under the people’s collective ownership and the government’s administration. 

On July 14, 1993, the Vietnamese National Assembly passed a 

new land law declaring that the government shall not return land 

8

expropriated to its rightful owners once that land has been assigned to other entities. 

This law, however, affected only Vietnamese nationals. Not until 

2003 did the National Assembly pass a resolution that allowed the 

state to expropriate land of Vietnamese-Americans. 

The 2003 land law authorized the Vietnamese Government to 

spurn any claim for the return of land already placed under the 

state administration prior to July 1, 1991. This land law officially 

completed the process of nationalizing all land and housing under 

the administration of the state. 

Mr. Chairman and esteemed members of the subcommittee, Congress has been very clear in its intent that the United States shall 

not provide assistance to governments that have violated the rights 

of U.S. citizens. 

The Trade Act of 1974 requires that a beneficiary of the Generalized System of Preferences may not have nationalized, expropriated 

or otherwise seized properties of U.S. citizens or corporations without providing or taking steps to provide prompt, adequate and effective compensation or submitting such issues to a mutually 

agreed forum for arbitration. 

22 USC Section 2370 is explicit in this prohibition against the 

granting of assistance to countries that have nationalized, expropriated or seized property of U.S. citizens, especially countries with 

Communist ties. 

The statute mandates in pertinent parts that the President shall 

suspend assistance to the government of any country to which assistance is provided under this chapter or any other act when the 

government of such country or any government agency or subdivision within such country on or after January 1, 1962, has nationalized or expropriated or seized ownership or control of property 

owned by any United States citizen. 

And in the statute itself it explicitly mentions the Socialist Republic of Vietnam as one of the countries that assistance shall not 

be provided. 

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Bass and esteemed members of 

the subcommittee, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam has failed to 

take appropriate steps to discharge its obligations under widely accepted general principle of international law to fully compensate 

Vietnamese-Americans for properties unlawfully nationalized or expropriated. 

The Socialist Republic of Vietnam has failed to foster the establishment of any genuinely democratic system and respect for internationally recognized human rights including the right to own 

property, the right to political speech and expressions, the right to 

freely practice any religion or belief and the right to life. 

Instead of improving its human rights record, Vietnam has increased its repression of democratic ideals since obtaining its entry 

into the World Trade Organization in 2007. 

Its repression and aggression have been the greatest against religious institutions. As part of this wave of repression, the Socialist 

Republic of Vietnam has aggressively expropriated land from religious communities including the Catholics, the Montagnard Protestants, the Hmong Protestants and the Khmer Krom Buddhists. 

9

The case of Con Dau Parish that the chairman is very familiar 

with illustrates the Vietnamese Government’s policy of wiping out 

an entire Catholic parish through expropriation of farm land, cemetery plots and residential homes of parishioners. 

On May 4, 2010, the authorities even prohibited the burial of a 

93-year-old parishioner in the parish cemetery. To make their act 

even more heinous, as parishioners proceeded with the funeral the 

police attacked them brutally, causing injuries to over 100 parishioners including the elderly and children. 

The police arrested 62 people and tortured them for days during 

detention, killing one of the detainees. 

Mr. Chairman and esteemed members of this subcommittee, the 

U.S. Government should not be complicit in the repression of democratic ideals in Vietnam. This government should not be complicit 

in the Vietnamese Government’s infringement on the rights of U.S. 

citizens. 

We therefore request that this Congress to do the following. One, 

demand the administration to stop all assistance to Vietnam as required by law, not ratify any trade agreements with Vietnam until 

Vietnam shows concrete improvements in the promotion of democracy and religious freedom for its people and adequately compensate U.S. citizens for the land that they illegally expropriated, 

and three, pass the Vietnam Human Rights Act and the Vietnam 

Sanctions Act. 

Again, I would like to thank the chairman, Ranking Member 

Bass and this subcommittee for providing me the opportunity to 

testify. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cao follows:]

10


81340a-1.eps

TESTIMONY OF ANH ((JOSEPH" CAO 

FORMER CONGRESSMAN 

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

SUBCOMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS 

AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS 

CONTINUING REPRESSING BY THE VIETNAMESE GOVERNMENT 

JUNE 4, 2013 

Vietnam's human rights violations and neglect of the rule of law. 
11


81340a-2.eps

Mr. Chairman and esteemed members of the Subcommittee, the history of VietnameseAmericans is a history bathed in tears, a history of unbearable suffering, but also a history with a 

proclamation of hope. April 30, 1975, was a day of infamy for the millions of Vietnamese 

whose future was dashed when their freedom was extinguished by the brutal assault on South 

Vietnam by Communists forces in blatant violation of the 1973 Paris Peace Accord. Having 

known or faced Communist cruelty, thousands of Vietnamese left their homes and family, 

climbing and clambering over one another to fight for a space on that last plane, on that last boat 

to escape immanent atrocities. What transpired in Vietnam after the Communist takeover could 

only be described by analogously linking the tragedy of Vietnam to such unconscionable events 

in human history as the Holocaust, the Killing Fields, and the Great Purge. In the aftennath of 

the Vietnam War, the Communist government arrested and forcibly detained hundreds of 

thousands offormer military personnel who were loyal to the Republic of South Vietnam and 

threw them into Nazi-style concentration camps along with thousands of political dissidents. 

Viewing religion as an existential threat to Communist orthodoxy, churches and temples were 

shut down, and religious leaders were arrested and sent to prison like common criminals. 

Economic policy lacking scientific and philosophic justification were implemented with 

devastating effects as countless thousands were evicted from their homes and sent to the New 

Economic Zones where many died of malaria and other deadly diseases. Facing starvation from 

ill-conceived economic policies, over one million Vietnamese left their home and country and set 

sail for the high seas facing pirates, storms, and death to seek freedom and a new future in 

foreign lands. It is estimated that over 300,000 of these "Boat People" perished in the oceans of 

the world. 

11 
12


81340a-3.eps

However, many successfully escaped and resettled in the United States. Through the 

generosity of the U.S. government and its people, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese were 

able to adjust to a new culture and become producti ve citizens. 1 am one of the many thousands 

who benefited from this generosity. I can recall very vividly and endearingly an elderly couple 

in Goshen, Indiana, who I would come to call "Mamoo" and "Papoo", driving me to school, 

taking me shopping, and buying for me my very first snow sled. 

I, along with thousands of Vietnamese, became U.S. citizens for one simple reason-to 

defend the Constitution of the United States and in return be defended by the same Constitution. 

Vietnamese-Americans now invoke this Constitution and respectfully request this Congress 

to protect them against the illegal expropriation of the land they left behind when they fled 

the evils of Communism. 

Mr. Chairman, to make this story short, on April 4, 1977, the Socialist Republic of 

Vietnam (SRV) issued an Executive Order placing the properties of Vietnamese who fled 

Vietnam under temporary state administration. Then in 1980, the SRV declared through its 

Constitution that "land belongs to the entire people with the State as the representative owner," 

thereby declaring in principle its policy to nationalize all land. On December 29, 1987, the 

National Assembly promulgated Vietnam's Land Law to implement this new policy, placing all 

land under the people's collective ownership and the government's administration. On July 14, 

1993, the Vietnamese National Assembly passed a new Land Law declaring that the government 

shall not return land expropriated to its rightful owners once that land had been assigned to other 

entities. 1 This law, however, affected only Vietnamese nationals. Not until 2003 did the National 

Assembly pass a resolution that allowed the State to expropriate land of Vietnamese-Americans. 

1 The 1993 Land Law officially effected the nationalization of land of Vietnamese in Vietnam but did not resolve the 

issue of land left vacant by those who had left Vietnam. Not until 2003 did the National Assembly pass Resolution 

to declare no return of land or homes to those living overseas. 

21 
13


81340a-4.eps

The 2003 Land Law authorized the Vietnamese government to spurn any claim for the return of 

land already placed under State administration prior to July 1, 1991. This land law officially 

completed the process of nationalizing all land and housing under the administration of the State. 

Mr. Chairman, Congress has been very clear in its intent that the United States 

Government shall not provide assistance to governments that have violated the rights of U.S 

citizens. The Trade Act of 1974, (19 USC 2462(b )(2), requires that a beneficiary of the 

Generalized System of Preferences "may not have nationalized, expropriated or otherwise 

seized property of U.S. citizens or corporations without providing, or taking steps to provide 

prompt, adequate, and effective compensation, or submitting such issues to a mutually agreed 

forum for arbi trati on." 

22 U.s.C § 2370 is explicit in its prohibition against the granting of assistance to 

countries that have nationalized, expropriated or seized property of U.S. citizens, especially 

countries with Communist ties. The statute mandates, in pertinent parts: 

31 

(e)(J) l/1e President .~hall su.spend assistance to the gOl'ernment o[ any cOllntry to 

which assistance is provided IInder this chapter or any other Act when the 

gOl'ernmellt o[sllch country or any gOl'ernment agency or subdi";sion within such 

cOllntry on or after January 1, 1962-

(A) has nationalized or expropriated or seized ownership or control ,,[property 

owned by any United States citizens or by any corporation, partnership, or 

association not less than 50 per centum beneficially owned by United States 

citizens, or association not less than 50 per centum beneficially owned by 

United States citizens, or . 

(f)(1) No assistance shall be filrnished under this chapter, (except section 2174 

(b) o[ this title) to any Communist country. This restriction may not be waived 

pursuant to any authority contained in this chapter unless the l'residentfinds and 

promptly reports to Congress that: 

(A) slIch assistance is vital to the security o[the United Slates; 

(B) the recipielll cOllntry is not controlled by the international Communisl 

conspiracy; and 
14


81340a-5.eps

(C) such assistance willfilrther promote the independence of the recipient 

country/hml international commullism. For the purposes oflhis 

subsection, the phrase "Communist country ,. includes specifically, but 

is flotlimiled 10, thefollowing COUII/ries: 

TJemocralic People's Republic of Korea, 

People's Republic of China 

Repuhlic of Cuba, 

Socialist Repuhlic of Vietnam, 

Tibet, 

Mr. Chairman, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam has failed to take appropriate steps to 

discharge its obligations under widely accepted general principle of international law to fully 

compensate Vietnamese-Americans for properties unlawfully nationalized or expropriated. The 

Socialist Republic of Vietnam has failed to foster the establishment of a genuinely democratic 

system, and respect for internationally recognized human rights, including the right to own 

property2, right to political speech/expressions', right to freely practice any religion or beliet, 

and the right to life5 Instead of improving its human rights record, Vietnam has increased its 

repression of democratic ideals since obtaining its entry into the World Trade Organization in 

2007. Its repression and aggression has been the greatest against religious institutions. 

2 Article 17 of the Universal TJeclaration of Human Rights (UDHR) stipulates that everyone has 

the right to own property and no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his/her property. 

, Right to speech is enshrined in Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political 

Rights; Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights; Article 13 of the American 

Convention on Human Rights; and Article 9 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' 

Rights. 

4 The freedom of religion and beliefis protected by Article 18 ofthe International Covenant on 

Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR); Also see, UN General Assembly resolutions: Declaration on 

the Elimination of All Forms ofTntolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief 

and the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and 

Linguistic Minorities. 

5 \:11ivS'Jsal [)ecJwati()l1c ()fHumanJ~ighls (1948) (article 3); International Covenant on Civil and 

Political Rights (1966) (article 6). 

41 
15


81340a-6.eps

As part of this wave of repression, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam has aggressi vely 

expropriated land from religious communities, including the Catholics, the Montagnard 

Protestants and Catholics, the Hmong Protestants, and the Khmer Krom Buddhists. The case of 

Con Dau Parish that the Chainnan is very familiar with illustrates the Vietnamese government's 

policy of wiping out an entire all-Catholic parish through expropriation offannland, cemetery 

plots, and residential homes ofparishioners. On May 4,2010, the authorities even prohibited the 

burial of a 93-year old parishioner in the parish's cemetery. To make their act even more 

heinous, as parishioners proceeded with the funeral, the police attacked them brutally, causing 

injuries to over a hundred parishioners including the elderly and children. The police arrested 62 

people and tortured them for days during detention killing one detainee. 

Mr. Chairman, the U.S government should not be complicit in the repression of 

democratic ideals in Vietnam; this government should not be complicit in the Vietnamese 

government's infringement of the rights of U.S. citizens. We therefore suggest this Congress to 

do the following: I) demand the Administration to stop all assistance to Vietnam as required by 

law; 2) not ratify any trade agreements with Vietnam until Vietnam shows concrete 

improvements in the promotion democracy and religious freedom for its people, and adequately 

compensate U.S. citizens for the land that they illegally expropriated; 3) pass the Vietnam 

Human Rights Act, and the Vietnam Sanctions Act. 

5 I ( 
16

Mr. SMITH. Congressman Cao, thank you very much for your testimony. 

Dr. Thang. 

STATEMENT OF NGUYEN DINH THANG, PH.D., EXECUTIVE 

DIRECTOR, BOAT PEOPLE SOS 

Mr. THANG. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Bass, Congressman Meadows, Congressman Lowenthal and other distinguished 

members of this subcommittee, from cities across America today 

some 800 of us, Vietnamese-Americans, gather in the halls of Congress to demand human rights for the 90 million Vietnamese people in Vietnam, our loved ones and also for the hundred of thousands of U.S. citizens that have been affected—that is, ourselves 

here in America. 

Confiscation of land has been used by the Government of Vietnam as a tool for corruption and also to repress the independent 

churches. 

However, it’s a little known fact that over the past 38 years the 

Vietnamese Government has also violated the rights and interests 

of U.S. citizens by illegally confiscating land, real estate and other 

properties of up to 1⁄2 million U.S. citizens of Vietnamese origin. 

We estimate the total amount of compensations owed by the Vietnamese Government to be between 50–100 billion U.S. dollars. 

Many of the victims, ardent U.S. citizens, are here in the audience. In 1975 and ensuing years, the Communist Government of 

Vietnam occupied land and homes left vacant by those who left the 

country in the face of persecution. 

However, the government only nationalized these lands and 

homes in November 2003 under a resolution already mentioned by 

Congressman Cao. 

But by that time, some 600,000 Vietnamese refugees in the U.S. 

had already become naturalized U.S. citizens. 

So essentially that new law, that resolution, nationalized the 

properties of U.S. citizens. This confiscation of the properties of 

U.S. citizens continues to this day. 

For example, in the same case of Con Dau referred to by Congressman Cao in Da Nang City the government has used force to 

evict the parishioners in order to take over their lands and homes, 

some of which belonged to U.S. citizens through inheritance. 

Right at this moment as we speak, government workers escorted 

by the police are about to bulldoze their ancestral home that belong 

to Vietnamese-Americans present in this audience. I have here a 

picture of the bulldozer escorted by the police right now in Vietnam. 

With the chairman’s permission, I also would like to include for 

the hearing’s record the report by the Association of Con Dau Parishioners that has been submitted to the U.N. Human Rights 

Council for the UPR review of Vietnam. 

Mr. SMITH. Without objection, so ordered. 

Mr. THANG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

U.S. laws are very clear toward a government—from governments that confiscates the properties of U.S. citizens. The Federal 

Claims Settlement Commission has the responsibility to adjudicate 

claims of U.S. citizens against foreign governments. 

17

The Foreign Assistance Act stipulates that the President shall 

suspend all assistance to a country the government of which has 

appropriated the properties of U.S. citizens and the U.S. Government shall vote against loans to that government from international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the 

Asian Development Bank. 

The Trade Act already mentioned by Congressman Cao bars the 

U.S. President of according GSP to a foreign government that has 

nationalized, expropriated or otherwise seized properties of U.S. 

citizens or corporations. 

I have personally helped numerous Vietnamese-Americans, including my own parents, to write to the State Department’s Legal 

Adviser’s office. 

In response, this office has provided a list of law offices in Vietnam and told claimants to contact—verbatim to contact and hire 

an attorney in Vietnam to help pursue any rights and remedies 

that you may have with regard to your property under domestic 

law in the local jurisdiction. We expected a lot more from own government. 

I have also helped these same Vietnamese-Americans to write to 

the U.S. Trade Representative asking him to include compensations for confiscated properties of U.S. citizens as part of the ongoing trade negotiations with Vietnam including the TPP. 

According to the USTR’s response, again verbatim, the United 

States has a broad and multifaceted relationship with Vietnam. 

Vietnam’s participation with us on a range of trade initiatives creates significant new possibilities for U.S. exporters. 

No mention about the properties of thousands—tens of thousands 

and potentially hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens that have 

been confiscated illegally by the Vietnamese Government. 

And last August, our organization, BPSOS, launched an online 

petition using the White House’s We The People Web site, calling 

on our own President to defend the rights and properties of U.S. 

citizens of Vietnamese origin. 

No response so far after 10 months. It is understandable why our 

administration has not taken an interest in defending the rights 

and properties of U.S. citizens of Vietnamese origin. Doing so 

might derail its policy of strategic engagements with the Socialist 

Republic of Vietnam. 

I therefore would like to call on Congress through this committee, subcommittee, to one—number one, request that the USTR 

includes immediately in the TPP negotiations with Vietnam our 

Government’s demand that the Vietnamese Government must, 

first, agree to pay compensations for all affected U.S. citizens including those of Vietnamese origin; to request of the Legal Adviser’s office at the State Department to espouse the claims of U.S. 

citizens against the Vietnamese Government; to negotiate with that 

government’s terms of settlements and demand the suspension of 

all land expropriations from now on, at least temporarily, throughout the country until a process is in place to ensure that no properties of U.S. citizens will be further expropriated without due and 

fair compensations. 

We call on the President to immediately suspend all assistance 

to Vietnam pending the results of such negotiations. We also call 

18

on Congress to authorize the U.S. Federal Claims Settlements 

Commission to start adjudicating claims by Vietnamese-Americans 

against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, and finally, to commission the GAO, the General Accountability Office to study the different forms of confiscation of properties employed by the Vietnamese Government over the past 38 years and also to assess the 

respective impact on U.S. citizens. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Thang follows:]

19


81340b-1.eps

Statement of Nguyen Dinh Thang, PhD 

CEO & President, Boat People SOS 

Before the 

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, 

and Intemational Organizations 

Continuing Repression by the Vietnamese Government 

June 4,2013 

BPSOS/Nguyen Dinh Thang 1/7 Jun 4,2013 
20


81340b-2.eps

Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the Committee: 

Since the mo,t recent Congressional hearing on Vietnam less than two months ago, the human 

righb conditiom in that communist country have already deteriorated significantly. 

On May 5, the police blocked or dispersed "human rights picnics" in Ha Noi, Hai Phong, Nha 

Trang and Saigon, detaining and beating up many rights activists in public areas or at the police 

stations. 

On May 16 the People's Court sentenced Nguyen Phuong Uyen, a 20-year old college student. to 

six years and Dinh Nguyen Kha, a 25-year computer technician, to eight years in prison on 

subversion charges, All they did was to speak out against China's expansionism. 

Then on May 26 the police arrested and detained Truong Duy Nhat, a well-known blogger who 

set up a public vote of confidence of government leaders, on charges of abusing democratic 

freedom,. Hb survey ,howed that only 7% of the respondents had confidence in Prime Minister 

Nguyen Tan Dung, and 9% in the National Assembly Speaker Nguyen Phu Trong. 

On May 29, eight Montagnard Catholics were sentenced to between three and 11 years for 

"undermining national unity," 

Repression and persecution have intensified right on the heels of the latest U.S.-Vietnam human 

right, dialogue. Thi, intemification is deplorable but not surprising. In April a U.S. delegation 

led by the State Department wa, in Ha N oi for a one-day dialogue on human rights. It was 

attended by Vietnamese rank-and-file government officials. Ten days later a large U.S. 

delegation led by the Acting US Trade Representative spent 3 days in Vietnam to negotiate 

Trans-Pacific Partnership: they met with the Vietnamese President, a Deputy Prime Minister, 

several ministers and deputy ministers, The message to the government of Vietnam was very 

clear: The U.S. cares more about trade than human rights, 

Some policymakers may argue that U.S. policies on human rights must be calibrated to 

accommodate a wide alTay of national interests. No other national interests should trump the 

rights and interests of U.S. citizens. The govemment of the Social ist Republ ic of Vietnam (SRV) 

has massively violated the rights and interests of U.S. citizens. 

Over the past 38 years the Vietname,e government has illegally confi,cated land, real estate and 

other properties of up to half a million U.S. citizens of Vietnamese origin. We estimate the total 

amount of compensations owed by the Vietnanlese government to be between $50 billion and 

$100 billion. 

In 1975 Communist troops from the North invaded the Republic of Vietnam, aka South Vietnam. 

As a result over a million South Vietnamese fled or were evicted from the country. Most of them 

later resettled in the U.S. as refugees. They left behind so many vacant real properties that on 

April 14, 1977 the Vietnamese govemment issued Executive Decision 11111977/CP to place 

BPSOS/Nguyen Dinh Thang 2/7 Jun 4,2013 
21


81340b-3.eps

them under temporary management by the state. The Executive Decision. in pertinent part. 

states that: "/lll residential housing, land and properties absent of owners who are Vietnamese or 

foreigners are dirertlv adminislered by the governmenl. When lhese o,rners relurn, lhe 

gorernment will resolve [the matter] with them. No one may unilaterally expropriate, tramier 

ownership, sell or buy residential housing or properties in the absence of their owners without 

authorization of the government agencies with proper jurisdiction . .. 

Many Vietnamese Americans did retum to Vietnam to reclaim their propelties. A very small 

number of them. after paying hefty bribes to influential govemment officia];" got their properties 

back. 

For the remaining victims. their slim hope of ever reclaiming their properties vanished in late 

2003 when Vietnam's National Assembly passed Resolution 23/2003/QHIl. Article I of this 

Resolution states that the Vietnamese government will no longer entertain any claim for the 

retum of land or residential housing already placed under state management. In other words. this 

Resolution changed the status of these vacant propelties from being "managed" to being 

"nationalized". By then. some 600,000 Vietnamese refugees in the U.S. had already become 

naturalized U.S. citizens. We estimate. conservatively. that some I 00.000 such vacant propelties 

belonged to U.S. citizens when they were nationalized. 

Through research we have found that this Resolution affected properties of U.S. citizens not only 

in South Vietnam but also in North Vietnam. In 1954. when the country was divided into North 

and South. some one million North Vietnamese evacuated to the South, leaving behind their land 

and real estate. The Communist govemment in the North "managed" those vacant real properties 

until they became nationalized in November 2003. 

The confiscation of the propelties of US citizens continues to thi s day in many different forms. 

Below are prevalent ones. 

(1) When real property in Vietnam that is jointly owned by a US citizen is sold. the 

Vietnamese govemment would automatically keep the share that belongs to the US 

citizen. 

(2) After 1975 the Vietnamese government ordered wealthy families in South Vietnam to 

deposit gold. jewelry and cash into state banks. They were issued a depository certificate. 

which a number Vietnamese Americans still hold on to. For years they have attempted in 

vain to demand the return of their assets deposited at Vietnanlese state banks. These 

propelties have never been nationalized. 

(3) Many Vietnanlese Americans have lawfully inherited real estate in Vietnanl from their 

deceased parents. As the Vietnamese government sweepingly expropriates entire areas. 

including parishes and villages. for commercial purposes or simply to target nonBPSOS/Nguyen Dinh Thang 3/7 Jun 4,2013 
22


81340b-4.eps

conformist religious denominations, an increasing number of U.S. citizens are robbed of 

their properties with little or no compensation. The case of the all-Catholic Parish of Con 

Dau in Da Nang City serves as vivid illustration. In May 20 I 0 the govel11ment of Da 

Nang City used force and violence to evict residents from their 135-year old parish. 

There are many US citizens with properties in Con Dau Parish. Right at this moment, 

government workers escorted by the police are about to bulldoze the ancestral home that 

belong to Vietnamese Americans present in the audience. With the Chairman's 

permission I am including for the hearing's Congressional record the report of the 

Association of Con Dau Parishioners that has been submitted to the UN Human Rights 

Council for the Universal Periodic Review of Vietnam. 

US laws are very clear towards a foreign govemment that confiscates the properties of US 

citizens: 

(I) In 1949 Congress passed the International Claims Settlement Act to establish the U.S. 

Federal Claims Settlement Commission, the function of which is to adjudicate the claims 

of U.S. citizens against foreign govel11ments. 

(2) The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. as amended in 1964 (22 USC 2370(e», stipulates 

that the President shall suspend all assistance to a country the government of which has 

expropriated the properties of U.S. citizens, and the U.S. govel11ment shall vote against 

loans to that government from international financial institutions such as the World Bank 

and the Asian Development Bank. 

(3) The Trade Act of 1974 bars the U.S. President from according Generalized System of 

Preferences (GSP) to a foreign government that has "nationalized, expropria/ed or 

otherwise seized property (!f U.S. citizens or corporations without prol'iding, or taking 

steps /0 provide prompt, adequate, and eJfeClive compensalion, or submilling such issues 

10 a mu/ually agreed forum for arbitration." 

From 1980 to 1995, the U.S. govemment successfully enforced these laws to compel the 

Vietnamese government to pay US $208 million in compensations to close to 200 U.S. citizens 

whose properties had been confiscated by the invading Communist troops in 1975. There was no 

naturalized U.S. citizen of Vietnamese origin anlOng those benefiting from this successful 

intervention by the U.S. government. 

Repeated appeals by Vietnamese Americans for equal treatment have been ignored by the 

present Administration. The U.S. Department of State Legal Adviser's Office, which is tasked 

with the responsibility of representing U.S. citizens in dhputes with foreign governments, has set 

three conditions for its espousal of the claims of U.S. citizens. 

BPSOS/Nguyen Dinh Thang 4/7 Jun 4,2013 
23


81340b-5.eps

(1) The claimant must be a U.S. citizen at the time the claim arose and continuously 

thereafter. As already explained, by the time the Vietnamese government officially 

nationalized land and real estate that belonged to Vietnamese refugees in the U.S .. 

most of these Vietnamese had already acquired U.S. citizenship. I am not aware of 

any Vietnamese Americans who have ever renounced their U.S. citizenship. 

(2) The expropriation is a violation of international law that is attributable to the foreign 

government. Title V11 of the International Claims Settlement Act of 1980 found that 

international law entitles U.S. nationals to just compensation for their expropriated 

propelty in Vietnam. and that the Communist authorities' expropriation of American 

propelty after the fall of the South Vietnam was not a lawful taking because the 

invasion which led to the taking violated the 1973 Paris Peace Accords and the U.N. 

Charter. This served as the basis for our government to pursue claims against the 

Vietnamese government between 1980 and 1995. 

The same basis should apply for naturalized US citizens of Vietnamese origin. The 

Communist government of North Vietnam not only broke the Paris Peace Accord and 

invaded South Vietnam but also executed some 60.000 South Vietnamese prisoners 

of war. sent over a million members of the South Vietnamese government and 

military to "re-education" camps where detainees were subjected to torture. evicted 

millions of South Vietnamese city dwellers to the "New Economic Zones" - the 

Vietnamese version of the Soviet Gulag, and committed other atrocities against 

people of faith, intellectuals. journalists, business owners, indigenous peoples. ethnic 

minorities. and Amerasians -- children of US servicemen and Vietnamese women 

bom during the Vietnam War. among others. Tn 1978 the Vietnamese government 

stalted to evict Vietnamese citizens of Chinese origin from Vietnam, pushing them 

out to sea which resulted in the Vietnamese "boat people" saga. Over a million 

Vietnarne;,e left their country by sea or by land between 1975 and 1990. The 

Communist authorities occupied and "managed" the land and homes they left behind. 

Such taking is clearly in violation of intemationallaw. 

(3) The claimant must exhaust local remedies in the relevant country. or demonstrate that 

doing so would be futile. Resolution 23/2003/QH11, passed by the Vietnamese 

National As;,embly pa",ed in November 2003. made any attempts at ;,eeking local 

remedy futile. The Vietnamese government has ;,ince 2003 cited thi;, resolution to 

dismiss claims made by Vietnarne;,e Americans. There is presently no local remedy 

available under Vietnamese law. 

I have personally helped numerous Vietnamese Americans, including my own parents. to write 

to the State Department's Legal Adviser. In response. the Legal Adviser's office has provided a 

list of law offices in Vietnam and told claimants to "contuct and hire an uttomey in Vietnam to 

BPSOS/Nguyen Dinh Thang 5/7 Jun 4,2013 
24


81340b-6.eps

help pursue any rights and remedies that [you] may have with regard to [your] property under 

domestic Illw in the local jurisdiction. " 

I have also helped these same Vietnamese Americans to write to the U,S, Trade Representative, 

asking him to include compensations for confiscated properties of U,S, citizens as part of the ongoing trade negotiations with Vietnam, The U,S, Trade Representative's response is very clear: 

"The Uniled SlaleS has a broad and multi(aceled relationship with Vietnam. Vielnam '.I 

parlicipalion wilh us on a range (!( trade iniliatives creales significant new opporluniliesfor U,S, 

exporters while also providing a unique opportunity to press for real change on longstanding 

concerns on labor, human rights and other concerns .. ," Just compensation for properties taken 

from U,S, citizens is evidently not one of those concems, 

Last August BPSOS launched an online petition using the White House's "We The People" 

website calling on the President to defend the rights and properties of U.S. citizens: 

"Our President should demonstrate his commitment to defending 

the rights and interests o{ US citizens by apph'ing the prohibition 

clause o{ the Foreign Assistance Act (22 USC 2370(e)) to Vietnam, 

colling on its government to freeze ./ilrther expropriations o{ US 

properties, and conditioning GSP or any filTther trade benefits on 

the return of all properties that belong to US citizel/S or payment 

qffai r compel/sation . .. 

Even though the White House had promised to answer any petition that collected 25,000 

signatures within 4 weeks and even though our petition campaign exceeded this threshold within 

3 weeks, to this day there has been no response from the White House, 

Apparently our Administration is dodging the issue, possibly fearing that it might derail its plan 

to pursue, in the words of the U.S. Trade Representative, "a wide array of economic, security, 

and strategic interests ,dth Vietl/am. '.' The rights and the properties of U.S. citizens should be 

national interests of highest priority for bOtll tlle Administration and Congress. 

The right to own property and the right to be protected against being arbitrarily deprived of one's 

property is enshrined in Article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 

A hundred thousand U.S. citizens being deprived of their rightful properties in the range of U.S. 

$50 - $100 billion is no small matter of national interest. 

I therefore would like to call on Congress, via this Committee, to: 

(1) Request that the U.S. Trade Representative includes in the Trans-Pacific Partnership 

(TPP) negotiations with Vietnam our govemment's demand that the Vietnamese 

government first agrees to pay compensations for all affected U.S. citizens. A number of 

members of Congress are concerned about the potential loss of $4 billion over 8 years for 

BPSOS/Nguyen Dinh Thang 6/7 Jun 4,2013 
25


81340b-7.eps

the U.S. textile industry if Vietnam were to join the TPP. That certainly is an issue of 

national interest. And so should be the actual loss of $50 - $100 billion affecting an 

estimated 100.000 U.S. citizens spread out in practically every Congressional district and 

state. 

(2) Request that the Legal Adviser's Office espouses the claims of U.S. citizens against the 

Vietnamese government, negotiates with the Vietnamese government terms of settlement. 

and demands the suspension of all land expropriations throughout the country until a 

process is in place to assure that no propelties of U.S. citizens be expropriated without 

due compensations. 

(3) CalIon the President to immediately suspend all assistance to Vietnam pending the 

results of the negotiation over compensations. 

(4) Authorize the U.S. Federal Claims Settlement Commission to start adjudicating claims by 

Vietnamese Americans against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. 

(5) Commission the GAO to study the different forms of confiscation of properties employed 

by the Vietnamese government over the past 38 years, and to assess their respective 

impacts on U.S. citizens. 

BPSOS/Nguyen Dinh Thang 7/7 Jun 4,2013 
26


81340f.eps
27

Mr. SMITH. Dr. Thang, thank you so very much. 

Ms. Ngo. 

STATEMENT OF MS. HOLLY NGO, VICTIM OF PROPERTY 

CONFISCATION 

Ms. NGO. Mr. Chairman Smith and members of the committee, 

thank you for allowing me to speak on behalf of my family and 

many other Vietnamese-American families that are similarly situated. 

My name is Holly Ngo. I escaped from Vietnam by boat in December 1978 and arrived at a refugee camp in the Philippines. I 

was resettled as a refugee to France in 1979 and stayed in Paris 

until September 1980. 

I then joined my family in the U.S. in October 1980 and became 

a U.S. citizen in 1985. I live in Garden Grove, California, and I’m 

currently working for Avery Dennison in Brea, California, as a senior Peoplesoft technical developer. 

My mother, Kim Hoang, fled Vietnam by boat in May 1979 and 

stayed in a refugee camp in Malaysia. She arrived in the U.S. in 

1980. She acquired U.S. citizenship in September 1996. 

My father stayed behind in Vietnam until 1991 and he joined our 

family in the U.S. in 1991 and became a U.S. citizen in January 

2000. 

On behalf of our family, I am seeking congressional intervention 

in the matter that affects our family and many Vietnamese-Americans. 

In 1979, one of our houses was placed under state management 

because we did not live in the house. In 2003, the Government of 

the Socialist Republic of Vietnam nationalized our land and our 

house and this is the English translation of the title of our real 

property in Vietnam. 

This is the bill of sale in 1970 and this is worth at least 800,000 

U.S. dollars now in Vietnam. 

In 1977, the Vietnamese Government forced my family to deposit 

2.384 kilograms of gold at the National Bank. They have not returned that gold, which is worth at least $135,882 at the present 

market value, and this is the receipt of our deposit dated February 

1, 1977. This is the original. 

In other words, the Vietnamese Government is unlawfully withholding access of U.S. citizen with no intention to return it. And 

my parents also has a second house in Vietnam. 

When my father sold it in 1990 to migrate to the U.S. the government kept 50 percent of the sale proceeds because my mother 

was in the U.S. at that time. 

They said they kept it for my mother but they never returned the 

money to her and at that time it was approximately 5,000 U.S. dollars in 1990 and this is the receipt. As I said, they kept 50 percent 

for my mother. 

On September 10, 2012, I sent a letter to Senator Barbara Boxer, 

Senator Dianne Feinstein, Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, Ambassador Ron Kirk of the Office of the United States Trade Representative, and Mr. Hongju Koh, the Legal Adviser of the Department of State, to ask them to raise this issue to the Vietnamese 

Government at every possible occasion encouraging the Vietnamese 

28

Government to send delegation to meet with our family and our 

legal counsel to discuss the return or the fair compensation of our 

property. 

I believe that my mother’s claim met all the three standard criteria that the Department of State used to assess the merit of similar claims. I have spent the past decade to seek local remedy. 

The Vietnamese Government will not entertain any claim for the 

return of land or residential housing already placed under statement management such as the case of our family. 

U.S. law is very clear that when a foreign nation expropriates 

property of a U.S. citizen the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 stipulates that the President shall suspend all assistance to a country 

the government of which has expropriated the property of a U.S. 

citizen and the U.S. Government will vote against loan to that government from international financial institutions. 

Congress is in the position to demand that our State Department 

apply U.S. law passed by Congress. Please forward our case and 

the case of so many other Vietnamese-Americans to the Legal Adviser for the Department of State and the U.S. Trade Representative and ask them, number one, what are their procedure and criteria they would use to assess the merit of our claim against the 

Vietnamese Government; number two, what is the threshold to 

apply the Trade Act of 1974 regarding not granting the Generalized 

System of Preference to the government that has expropriated 

property of a U.S. citizen; number three, what is the threshold to 

apply the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 regarding the suspension 

of foreign assistance to a government that has expropriated property of a U.S. citizen. 

I know that the Clinton administration intervened on behalf of 

an American and successfully secured of U.S. dollars like $200 million in compensation for an American whose property has been expropriated by the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. 

We expect the Obama administration to show the same treatment toward Americans of Vietnamese origin and we expect equal 

protection of rights and property of all Americans. However, this is 

not the case. 

I therefore am very grateful for this opportunity to appeal to our 

Congress to do what is right to protect the rights and the property 

of the U.S. citizen. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Ngo follows:]

29


81340d-1.eps

Name: HOLLY NGO 

Title and organizational affiliation: N/A 

House Committee on Foreign Affairs 

Date of Committee hearing: JlUle 4, 2013 
30


81340d-2.eps

Chaimlan Smith and members ofthe Committee, 

Thank you for allowing me to speak on behalf of my family and many other 

Vietnamese American families that are similarly situated. 

My name is Holly Ngo. I escaped from Viet Nam by boat in December 1978 and 

arrived at a refugee camp in Philippines. I was resettled as a refugee to France in 

1979 and stayed in Paris until September 1980. T then joined my family in the US in 

October 1980 and becanle US citizen in 1985. I currently live in Garden Grove, 

California. I am currently working for Avery Dennison in Brea, California as a 

Senior Peoplesoft technical developer. 

My mother Kim Hoang fled Viet Naill by boat in May 1979 and stayed in a refugee 

camp in Malaysia. She arrived in the US in 1980. She acquired US citizenship in 

September 1996. My father stayed behind in Viet Nam until 1991. He joined our 

family in the US in 1991 and became naturalized US citizen in January 2000. 

On behalf of our family, I am seeking Congressional intervention in a matter that 

aftects our family and many Vietnamese-Americans. 

In 1979, one of our houses was placed Lmder state management because we did not 

live in the house. In 2003, the govemment ofthe Socialist Republic of Vietnam 

nationalized our land and our house. We are enclosing a notarized copy of the title to 

our properties in Vietnam. Enclosed is the English translation of the title to our real 

property in Vietnam. It is worth at least 800,000 USD now. 

In 1977 the Vietnamese government forced my family to deposit 2.384 Kg of gold at 

the national bank. They have not returned that gold, which is worth $135,882 at the 

present market value. Enclosed is the receipt of our deposit dated Feb I, 1977. In 

other words, the Vietnamese govemment is muawfully withholding asset of US 

citizens with no intention to retum it. 

My parents also had a second house in Viet Nam. When my father sold it in 1990 to 

migrate to the US, the govemment kept 50 % of the sale proceeds because my mother 

was in the U.S. at that time. They said they kept it for my mother, but they never 

returned the money to her. It was approximately 5000 USD in 1990. 
31


81340d-3.eps

On Sep 10, 2012, [ sent letters to Senator Barbara Boxer, Senator Diane Feinstein, 

Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez; Ambassador Ron Kirk of the Office of the United 

States Trade Representative; and Mr. Hongju Koh , Legal Adviser, Department of 

State to ask them to raise this issue to the Vietnamese government at every possible 

occasion, encouraging the Vietnamese government to send delegations to meet with 

our families and our legal counsel to discuss the return of or the fair compensations 

for the expropriated properties. 

I believe that my mother's claims meet all three standard criteria that the Department 

of State uses to assess the merits of similar claims: 

(1 )My mother is a US. citizen at the time the claim arose and continuously 

thereafter to this day. 

(2)The act of expropriation is a violation of international law that is attributable to 

the foreign government. The govennllent of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam 

nationalized our real properties through its law in 2003. According to 

international law the expropriation of alien property is lawful only if prompt, 

adequate and effective compensation is provided for. In our case, the 

govenUllent of Vietnam has offered no compensation whatsoever. 

(3)My mother's case meets the Department of State's requirement that "the 

claimant must exhaust local remedies in the relevant country, or demonstrate 

that doing so would be futile." There is no possible local remedy. On 26 

November, 2003, Vietnam's National Assembly promulgated the 2003 Land 

Law (13/2003/QHll) along with Resolution 23/2003/QHll, Article I of which 

aftirtllS that the Vietnamese govennllent will not entertain any claim for the 

return ofland or residential housing already placed under State administration 

prior to that date. Any attempts at seeking remedy through local lawyers would 

constitute waste oftime and money. 

I have spent the past decade seeking local remedies. The Vietnamese govenmlent 

will not entertain any claim for the return ofland or residential housing already 

placed under State management such as the case of our family. 

US. law is very clear when a foreign nation expropriates properties of US. citizens. 

The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended in 1964 (22 USC 2370(e)), 

stipulates that the President shall suspend all assistance to a country the government 
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81340d-4.eps

of which has expropriated the properties of U.S. citizens, and the U.S. government 

shall vote against loans to that government from international financial institutions. 

Congress is in a position to demand that our State Department applies US. laws 

passed by Congress. 

Please forward our case and the cases of so many other Vietnamese Americans to the 

Legal Adviser for the Department of State and the US Trade Representative and ask 

them: 

- What are their procedures and criteria they would use to assess the merits of 

our claims against the Vietnamese government? 

- What is the threshold to apply The Trade Act of 1974 (19 USC 2462(b)(2» 

regarding not granting Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) to 

governments that have expropriated properties ofU S. citizens? 

- What is the threshold to apply the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended 

in 1964 (22 USC 23 70( e», regarding the suspension of foreign assistance to 

governments that have expropriated properties ofU S. citizens? 

The Clinton Administration intervened on behalf of and successfully secured over US 

$200M in compensation for Americans whose properties had been expropriated by 

the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. We expect the Obama Administration to show the 

same treatment towards Americans of Vietnamese origin. We expect equal protection 

of rights and properties for all Americans. However this has not been the case. r 

therefore am grateful for this opportwlity to appeal to our Congress to do what is 

right to protect the rights and the properties of U.S. citizens. 

Sincerely yours, 

HOLLYNGO 
33

Mr. SMITH. Ms. Ngo, thank you very much for your testimony 

and for asking such pertinent questions of the U.S. Department of 

State and of the administration. 

I think such a violation of your rights and the rights of your 

mother, as you pointed out, cannot go unanswered. So thank you 

so very much. 

I’d like to now yield to the Venerable Thich Danh Tol. 

STATEMENT OF THE VENERABLE DANH TOL, VICTIM OF 

RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION 

[The following testimony was delivered through an interpreter.] 

Ven. TOL. Mr. Chairman, I would like to take this opportunity 

to thank the committee, the chairman, for inviting me to come here 

and testify before your subcommittee. 

Before I present my statement and recommendation, I wish to 

offer my prayers and my thoughts to the victims of the Oklahoma 

tornados. I wish them speedy recoveries. 

I wish to summarize my statement and I wish to include my 

written statement for the record. 

Mr. SMITH. Without objection, yours and all of the witnesses’ full 

statements and any attachments will be included in the record. 

Ven. TOL. My name is Venerable Danh Tol. I’m a Khmer Krom 

Buddhist monk in Vietnam. I was ordained into the monkhood in 

1996. 

I led a peaceful and nonviolent demonstration on February 8, 

2007, in Soc Trang with over 200 monks—Khmer Krom monks in 

order to demand the freedoms of religion to practice Theravada 

Buddhism. 

I was arrested, defrocked by force and imprisoned on February 

26, 2007, for 4 years. Others arrested and imprisoned were the 

Venerable Kim Moul, Venerable Thach Thuong, Venerable Ly 

Hoang and Venerable Ly Suong. 

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I would like to 

inform you that I was tortured and beaten incessantly by the police 

forces and I was in general tortured and interrogated at night time. 

I was tortured and I was interrogated and forced to admit the 

wrongdoings of which I did not commit. 

The Vietnamese Government have the police forces to arrest the 

Buddhist—the Khmer Krom Buddhist monks as well to torture 

them in order to force them to admit the wrongdoings which they 

did not do and during the tortures, beatings and sufferings have 

incurred. 

For approximately up to 6 months, I was held in isolation, in 

darkness and naked. During the imprisonment I was held and I 

was beaten incessantly and I suffered mentally, emotionally, physically, and was forced to admit what I did that I didn’t do. 

After the interrogation and tortures I was bleeding and was left 

unconscious. After waking up I was tortured again and again and 

I did nothing wrong. The thing what we did—I didn’t do anything 

wrong and they kept forcing me to admit wrong things. 

I was imprisoned for 4 years. I was in prison for 4 years. I was 

released on January 17, 2009. Under the pressure from the foreign 

interventions I was released on January 17, 2009. 

34

On April the 20th, I fled the country and into Thailand. I was 

released—I was never convicted. I left Thailand in 2009. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I would like to inform you 

that even right now the Vietnamese authority is still accusing 

other Khmer Krom Buddhist monks for peaceful religious activities, in violation of their human rights. 

Even right now the Government of Vietnam has arrested three 

Khmer Krom Buddhist monks and they are Venerable Lieu Ny, 

Venerable Thuol, and Venerable Chanh Da. 

Even the followers of the Theravada Buddhism were arrested for 

supporting the Khmer Krom monks. Three women and three follower men have been arrested but I just can’t remember all of the 

names of the prisoners being held by the Vietnamese Government 

right now. 

My apology, Mr. Chairman. I am really emotional and at this 

time I would like the committee—would like your support to allow 

the Khmer Krom Buddhist monks—I would like the committee to 

urge the Vietnamese Government to unconditionally release Venerable Lieu Ny, Venerable Thach Thuol, Venerable Phum Rich, and 

Thach Tha. 

I believe that while they were in prison they would be tortured 

incessantly just what they did to myself. I believe that the other 

two venerables are being imprisoned right now, Venerable Lieu Ny 

at the Tra Set Temple and the Venerable Thach Thuol also at the 

Tra Set Temple and also Venerable Ly Chanh Da at the Prey Chop 

Temple. 

Also in this regard, I would like to recommend the committee to 

urge Vietnam to allow Khmer Krom Buddhist monks to create an 

independent religious organization free from interference from the 

Government of Vietnam. 

We would like to have the violations of human rights against 

Khmer Krom Buddhist monks stopped and I would urge the committee to advise the U.S. State Department to redesignate Vietnam 

as a Country of Particular Concern for the violations of the Khmer 

Krom Buddhist monks. 

And I would urge Vietnam to respect the human rights of the 

Khmer Krom people as well as the Khmer Krom Buddhist monks 

in the Mekong Delta, to avoid violation and stop violations of the 

human rights of the Khmer Krom people and Khmer Krom Buddhist monks. 

Again, I would like to thank the chairman and members of the 

subcommittee for the opportunity for me to be here. 

[The prepared statement of Ven. Tol follows:]

35


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KHMERS KAMPUCHEA-KROM FEDERATION 

Asia - Australia - Europe - North America 

P.O. Box 0193 • Pennsauken. NJ .08110. U.S.A .• Tel: (856) 655-3838 • Fax: (856) 583-1503 

http://wwwkhmerkrom.org • Email: gil1p.tfan:".khmerkl"Olll.org 

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International 

Organizations 

259A Ford House Office Building 

Washington, D.C. 20515 

Written Statement 

On behalf of the Khmers Kampuchea-Krom Federation (KKF), I would like to bring to 

your attention regarding to the Human Rights abuses that our unforhmate KhmerKrom people living in our homeland, Kampuchea-Krom (Southern Vietnam), are 

facing. They are the poorest of the poor people in Mekong Delta. Their fundamental 

rights are violated, because of their ovvn safety, they fear to speak up to defend for their 

rights. 

Kampuchea-Krom is the Khmer name for the Mekong Delta and surrounding region of 

the current state of Viet Nam. The Indigenous Peoples of Kampuchea-Krom are the 

Khmer-Krom, the ancient descendents of the people of Nokor Phnom (or Funan in the 

Chinese translation) empire. During colonization of France, Kampuchea-Krom was 

called Cochin China. 

The KKF has brought the Khmer-Krom Human Rights violations to the United Nations 

in New York and Geneva and provided possible recommendations to the Vietnamese 

government. Unfortunately, the Vietnamese government still denies having an open 

dialog with the KKF and has also tried to silence KKF even at the United Nation level. 

Vietnam Immched a vehement campaign to request the member states of ECOSOC not 

to grant consultative status for KKF even KKF was already granted the special 

consultative status by the ECOSOC NGO committee on May 22,2012. 

It obviously shows that the voiceless Khmer-Krom people do not have the fundamental 

rights to live on their ancestral land as briefly discussed below: 

Right to Preserve Khmer-Krom Identity and Culture 

Vietnamese government continues to erase the identity of Khmer-Krom people as 

Indigenous Peoples of Mekong Delta. Vieh1am forbids the Indigenous Khmer-Krom 

Peoples to be referred to as "Khmer-Krom" and label them as "Dan TQc Thie'u So 

Khmer" (ethnic minority Khmer). 

The false history of the Khmer-Krom is taught in public school. Vietnamese 
36


81340c-2.eps

government docs not allow Khmer-Krom to call their village, districts, and provinces 

in their Khmer language. 

From Dec~mb~r 2-4, 2011, Vi~blam organized th~ Fifth Festival Culture, Sport and 

Tourist for the Khmer-Krom to perform to lure tourists into the region. Besides 

exploiting the culture of the Khmer-Krom for economic benefit, Vietnam forces KhmerKrum tu p~rfurm its culture and music that are not based on the Khmer-Krom culture 

at all. They have to sing a song in both Vietnamese and Khmer and the content of the 

songs are to thank the Vietnamese government and its communist party. This is clearly 

a sign of oppression toward a culture. When the Khmer-Krom performed a cultural 

event abuut Sen Dun-Ta Festival (Pay Respect tu their ancestor), the Khmer-Krom 

performers had to put incense on the altar to pay respect to their ancestors. The Kllll1erKrom audiences were shocked and very upset when the picture on the altar was the 

picture uf Ho Chi Minh. It was insulting to the Khmer-Krom because Hu Chi Minh is 

not the Kllmer-Krom's ancestor. Even though they were not happy, they could not 

complain or seck any recourse because they live in fear. The Fifth Festival of Culture 

and Sport is nothing more than exploitation and a mockery toward the Khmer-Krom 

culture. 

Right to Learn the International Law 

Vietnam adupted the UNDRIP, but the UNDRIP is not allowed tu distribute freely in 

Kampuchea-Krom. Most of the Khmer-Krom don't even know the existence of 

UNDRIP and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The Human Rights 

workshup to educate Khmer-Krom about their basic rights is not allowed. 

Right to Represent and Defend in front of the Vietnamese Legal System 

The Khmer-Krom people are living in FEAR on their ancestral land in Vietnam. They 

are treated as the secund class. When the Khmer-Krom peuple are faCing the legal 

issues, they have no voice in the legal system of Vietnam: 

On September 2, 2010, twenty-two Khmer-Krom rubber plantation workers in Tay 

Ninh province were uff work on the Vietnam's National Day holiday. They decided 

to explore a local market in the Vietnamese-populated town. Unfortunately, the 

Vietnamese locals attacked them because they are Khmer-Krom. Mr. Chau Net, who 

answered tu the Vietnamese mub that he is Khmer-Krum, was murdered right away. 

Mr. Chau Net's skull was sliced in half by an axe. He was then horrifically beheaded 

with a Samurai sword. Mr. Chau Phat and Chau Keo were severely injured. Other 

people managed to escape with minor injury. This is a serious crime against the 

innucent Khmer-Krum wurkers, but the Vieblamese authurity has not taken any 

serious actions to arrest the killers to bring them to face justice. Mr. Chau Net's parents 

were threatened by the government to stop filing complaints to find justice for their 

son. 

Vietnam uses the so called "etlnlic minority agency" (Ban Dan T9C) to represent for the 

rights of the Khmer-Krom. In reality, this is an agency that Vietnam uses it to 
37


81340c-3.eps

propagate the state's policies and uses the indigenous peoples who work for that 

agency to oppress its own people if their people stood up for their rights: 

Mr. Huynh Ba, a Khm~r-Krom land rights activist, l~d th~ Khm~r-Krom farm~rs from 

Soc Trang province to demand returning their confiscated farmlands many time at the 

ethnic minority agency in Can Tho province. The ethnic minority agency has no power 

to resolve any issue and threatens the Khmer-Krom farmers to go back to their village 

or face arrest. Because Mr. Huynh Ba was the leader, he was arrested on May 30, 2009 

and released on February 2011 without a free and fair trial. He had no lawyer or right 

to defend in front of the Vietnamese court. As of today, the confiscated farmlands of 

the Khmer-Krom farmers have not yet been returned. The Khmer-Krom farmers have 

nowhere to turn to for justice. 

Venerable Danh Tol, Ven. Kim MOlll, Ven. Ly Hoang, Ven. Thach ThelOng and Ven. Ly 

Suong were arrested, defrocked, and imprisoned in 2007 because they led a peaceful 

demonstration to demand the freedom to practice Theravada Buddhism. After being 

released in February 2009, Ven. Danh Tol and Ven. Kim Moul appealed the Vietnamese 

government to be re-ordained as Buddhist monks, but they were denied. Vieblamese 

authorities ordered the Khmer-Krom people who work for the government such as: 

Mr. Son Song Son, Mr. Thach Kim Sen, and Mr. Lam Ren to bring in Ven. Kim Moul 

and Danh Tol for prolonged intimidation and integration, depriving them of rest and 

food. The Khmer-Krom people who serve as "public servants" for the Vieblamese 

government arc puppets who do whatever the government tells them to do. They arc 

scared to speak up for their own people's rights. 

Vieblam invited UN Independent Expert on Minority Issues, Ms. Gay McDougall to 

visit Vietnam from July 5-15,2010. According to an official report of Ms. McDougall's 

trip to Vietnam published on January 21, 2011, the Vietnamese government arranged 

for her to visit and meet only the etlmic minorities who work for the government, 

"during her visit, she was largely confined to meetings arranged by the Government, 

encountering obstacles that limited opportunities for unaccompanied meetings outside of the 

presence of Government officials. She therefore does not believe that she had full, free and 

unfettered access to all parties whom she wished to consult. This impeded her ability to obtain 

perspectives other than those in consonance with official Government positions" 

Right to Learn and Use Khmer Language 

The Indigenous Khmer-Krom Peoples are not allowed freely to learn and else their 

Khmer language. The current teaching of the Khmer language in public schools 

attended by Khmer-Krom students is not a program that actually enables Khmer-Krom 

children to know their mother language. There are no Khmer programs in Primary 

Public School, where most of the Khmer-Krom children melst leave school at the last 

class to help their parents either in the farm works or as an unskilled worker because of 

the conditions of poverty in which their families live. From some junior public high 

schools provide just two to three hours of emreliable programs per week for KhmerKrom sUldents to learn Khmer, which is not an adeqewte amOLlllt of time to learn any 
38


81340c-4.eps

language. TIlercfore, most of the young Khmer-Krom now cannot read nor write their 

own language. 

The Vietnamese guvernment furbids the Khmer-Krom from bringing Khmer text buuks 

from Cambodia to Vietnam for the Khmer-Krom students to study. In recent years, 

Vietnam published the Khmer text books for Khmer-Krom students to study. The text 

buoks' contents contain propaganda to brainwash the Khmer-Krom sUldents. The text 

books are written by the Vieh1amese who do not know the Khmer language well. Thus, 

the text books have many grammatical errors and incorrect spelling. This is the reason 

why the Khmer-Krom SUI dents want to srudy the Khmer text books from Cambodia, 

which Vietnam does not allow. 

Right to Own Land 

When the Khmer-Krom people have a dispute with Vietnamese citizens or the 

Viehlamese government, the Khmer-Krom victims have no right to file complaints to 

seek justice. When they stand up for their rights, they face imprisonment: 

On April 22, 2010, Mrs. Tran Thi Chau was arrested and later sentenced by the Court of 

Tra Vinh for two and half years in prison. Mrs. Tran Thi Chau had a land-grab dispute 

with the local authorities at the Nhi Truong market in Nhi Truong village, Cau Ngang 

district, Tra Vinh province. The authorities arrested her on her way to a wedding and 

then accused her with the alleged crime of retaking her land. 

On March 31, 2011, Mr. Chau Hen was sentenced for two years in prison by the Court 

of Tri Ton district, An Giang province. Mr. Chau Hen had organized peaceful 

demonstrations to demand the rerurn of confiscated Khmer-Krom farmlands in the Tri 

Ton district in 2007 and 2008. Because he led the demonstrations, he was accused of 

public disturbance and suffered Imjust imprisonment. 

Recent news from Tra Vinh province (the Mekong Delta), a Khmer Krom local named 

Mr. Thach Khemerabot reported that since the Vietnamese/Chinese New Year in 

January, 2012, the price of rice in the Mekong Delta region has outrageously gone 

down in an unpredictable manner, while the world price of rice has gone up in 

contrast. 

Many poor and helpless Khmer-Krom farmers in the Mekong Delta have historically 

been relying heavily on their rice production as their main source of income and 

livelmood and to pay back loans they took during rice plantation season to purchase 

fertilizers and chemicals. 

The Khmer-Krom local farmers have suspected there must be some kind of politicallymotivated schemes being carried out by the Hanoi communist regime against the poor 

and helpless Khmer-Krom local farmers in the Mekong Delta region, so in the end the 

highly-in-debt Khmer-Krom farmers would have to sell their traditional farmlands to 

pay down their debts. The local Khmer-Krom farmers have expressed that they are 

victims in this grand scheme, and have sought international help on stopping this 
39


81340c-5.eps

inhumane and racially-motivated acts against them. They have also expressed grave 

concern for the future of their children whom might have to drop out of school in order 

to support their poor family, becalJse their traditional farming bLlsinesses unjustly 

forced out of business by the State. 

On International Women Day-March 8,2012, Mrs. Neang Sen, a Khmer-Krom woman 

from An Giang province has expressed grave concerns over helpless and abject poverty 

due to loss of her ancestral land to the Vieh1amese authorities' extortion scheme during 

the period 1979 to 1983, when Mrs. Neang Sen's families and the Khmer-Krom 

villagers were forced out to live in Hau Giang province instead. On their return to 

hometown few years later, Mrs. Neang Sen and others learned that their farmlands and 

properties have been confiscated by the Vieh1amese authorities and Vieh1amese 

newcomers and to this day their calls for return of their lands receive no response from 

the Vietnamese aLlthorities. Not only their calls for justice have been ignored, but Mrs. 

Neang Sen and villagers have accused for disturbing public order and being 

discriminated as unruly and second-class citizens by the Viemamese authorities. 

Right to be Free from Torture 

After living in fear and oppression, Yen. Danh Tol and Yen. Kim Moul escaped 

Vietnam to seek refugee status in Thailand via Cambodia. They were granted asylum 

status to live in Sweden in September 2009. When they reached to the free world, they 

told their stories about how they were treated and tortilTed by the Vieb1amese police 

and guards while in prison. 

Mr. Chau Hen used to be a healthy person. After being arrested and imprisoned, he 

has been tortilTed and has not been allowed to speak to his wife when she visits. 

Mr. Chau Hen was leg cuffed at a hospital when he was sick 

Right to Travel from and to Their Ancestral Land 

The Khmer-Krom people have to ask for permission if they need to travel within 
40


81340c-6.eps

Vietnam or abroad: 

On October 29,2011, Venerable Ly Le in Vinh Chau district, Soc Trang province, asked 

permission to travel to Cambodia, but the Vietnamese government refused, alleging 

the crime of being caught while talking online with the Khmer-Krom abroad on April 

23,2011. 

Venerable Soeun Ty, a Khmer-Krom Buddhist monk, had left his family in Soc Trang 

province to live in Cambodia in 2003 and became a Cambodian citizen in 2004. On May 

27, 2010, he went back to visit his parents. The Vietnamese police seized his 

Cambodian passport and subjected him to a full day of interrogation. 

To closely monitor the Khmer-Krom visiting Viehlam from abroad, Viehlam requires 

the Khmer-Krom visitors to register with the local authority where they visit. The 

Viemamese authority even sends police to "visit" the Khmer-Krom visitors making 

them feel Lmcomfortable and concerned for their safety. Those who do not register with 

the local authorities arc fined. Mr. Tran Van Lyo, a Khmer-Krom from CalifoTIlia was 

fined one million two hundred fifty thousand Dong (about 50 US dollar) on December 

10, 2010 because he forgot to register with the local authority when he visited his 

hometown in Travinh province. 

On November 8, 2011, while visiting Cambodia, Ms. Thach Bopha from the United 

States wanted to go to Vieblam to visit her relatives. She went to apply for a visa at the 

Viehlamese Embassy in Cambodia. She was totally shocked when a staff at the 

embassy told her that the embassy cannot issue visa for her because of her KlllnerKrom last name, Thach. 

On March 22, Mr. Son Subert, an adviser to the King of Cambodia, and his friends were 

stopped at the border and not allowed to enter Viemam even they had Visa issued by 

the Vieblamese Embassy in Cambodia. Mr. Son Subert planned to travel to Viemam 

and visit his relatives in Preah Trapeang (Tra Vinh) province. 

On April 12, 2013, Mr. Ly Chhuon, an Editor-in-Chief of the PreyNokorNews magazine 

in Cambodia, his wife and his daughter left Phnom Penh, Cambodia, to visit his 

relatives in Kampuchea-Krom (Mekong Delta) during the Cambodian New Year. His 

family wants to celebrate Cambodian New Year with his relatives in his homeland. 

Unforhmately, the Viemamese authority detained them for three days and then 

deported them back to Cambodia. 

Right to Freely Practice Theravada Buddhism 

Practice Theravada Buddhism in Fear 

The Kllmer-Krom Buddhist monks and followers of Theravada Buddhism must use 

caution when worshipping in the Kampuchea-Krom region. The Vietnamese 

government has embedded their agents inside of Khmer-Krom temples to monitor and 
41


81340c-7.eps

report all the activities of monks and followers. TIle purpose of this surveillance is to 

ensure that all Khmer-Krom temples are following the stringent orders that the 

Patriotic United Buddhist Association (PUBA) has mled. 

These agents arc monks, and high-ranking members of the temple, such as Abbots and 

Head Monks, most of them are forced to do so under duress. These operatives are 

pressured to accept these monitoring positions because of political pressure or financial 

gain. vVhether or not employed under duress, they receive a monthly salary from the 

government; this act alone defies several of the most central Buddhist beliefs. Knowing 

that spies are constantly watching, the Khmer-Krom Buddhists now practice their 

religion in fear. 

Though most of these spies involuntarily work for the government, some have been 

more than happy to take advantage of this system of control. Vietnam allows the 

Khmer-Krom Buddhist monks to become members of Congress. Such is the case of 

Venerable Thach Houl, who after being elected, had no qualms oppressing his own 

fellow Buddhist monks. In addition, he serves as a mouthpiece for governmental 

propaganda. It is officials like Ven. Thach Hocll who maintain the image of "religious 

freedom" in Vietnam while covering the constant suppressions of indigenous peoples. 

The Khmer-Krom monk shldents in the Pali school in Soc Trang province are being 

monitored particularly heavily. They must report wherever they go. Moreover, all the 

foreigners who come to this school arc monitored heavily. In September 2010, a 

Buddhist delegation from Thailand was not allowed to visit this school without a 

proper explanation. 

The Theravada Buddhist monks and followers are afraid to speak freely. Those who 

have expressed interest in their rights to freely practice as they wish lluickly cease for 

fear of being arrested. 

Imprisonment for demanding Religious Freedom 

Since Kampuchea-Krom has been taken, the Khmer-Krom monks have peacefully 

demonstrated in order to restore their manner of worship. These non-violent protests 

lead to unjust arrests. The Vietnamese government cites these arrests as "Disturbing 

the Vietnamese Society" and "Involving with Anti-Vietnamese Government Activities" 

as stated under Articles 87 and 88 of the Vieblamese Penal Code. 

Despite being formally disbanded, the Khmer-Krom Buddhists have continued to rally 

together in order to protect their rights to practice religion in a traditional manner. 

They have peacefully protested and have attempted to further their religious shldies; 

however, governmental authorities have prevented this expression of free speech and 

religion. They have stemmed protests with military force, and restricted the transfer of 

information between Khmer-Krom localities. 

One example of suppression of protestors occurred on February 8, 2007. A non-violent 

demonstration took place in front of the Pali School in Soc Trang. The purpose of this 
42


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protest was for the Khmer-Krom community to regain their rights to form an 

independent religious organization, to perform ceremonies as defined by religious and 

cultural custums, and tu practice Buddhism withuut interference frum the Vietnamese 

guvernment. Over twu hundred Khmer-Krom Buddhist munks participated in the 

protest. 

The peaceful demunstraturs were met with fresh waves uf oppression. The Vieblamese 

authorities used military force to demobilize them. Ultimately, nine monks were 

arrested, forced to disrobe, and detained. Five of them, Yen. Kim Moul, Yen. Danh Tol, 

Yen. Ly Suong, Yen. Thach Thuong, and Ly Hoang, were sentenced from two to four 

years uf imprisonment withuut a fair trial. The remaining munks have been placed 

under temple arrest and arc subjected to daily interrogation and heavy surveillance 

even to this day. Some of them escaped to Cambodia and Thailand. 

In addition to restricting free speech, the Viehlamese government has prevented 

freedom of religious practice. Because PUBA has replaced all of the other religious 

associations in the region, the Khmer-Krom have limited methods by which they can 

learn traditiunal Khmer-Krom B'Jddhism. They must rely un infurmatiun frum abroad. 

Therefore, the Khmer-Krom Buddhist monks want to study in Cambodia or Thailand 

and really want to listen to foreign news stations in order to receive information from 

Khmer-Krum brethren in other natiuns. 

An exemplary case was that of Thach Sophon, a former Khmer-Krom Buddhist monk, 

defrocked on July 22, 2010. He was arrested by the Vietnamese government on July 29, 

2010, fur the alleged crimes of sending Khmer-Krom Buddhist munks to study abroad 

without permission from the Viehlamese government, and for accessing "restricted 

information" via satellite to listen to the news about Khmer-Krom living abroad. He 

was released un September 27, 201 0 and then remained under huuse-arrest fur anuther 

nine months. 

Recent Arrested of Khmer-Krom Buddhist monks and Khmer-Krom Buddhist followers 

On March 26, 2013, the Viehlamese authority summoned representatives of ninety two 

Khmer-Krom Buddhist temples in Soc Trang province to attend a meeting at the 

"Political School of Soc Trang". The summuned letter was sent tu all Khmer-Krom 

temples in Soc Trang province just a day before the meeting. TI,e Vieh,amese 

Authority used this meeting and tactics to intimidate, harass, and threaten the Kllll1erKrom Buddhist monks and committee members of Khmer-Krom temples in Soc Trang 

province for exercising their rights and for standing up tu demand fur freedum of 

religion and their religious belief. 

The Vieblamese authurity accused Venerable Thach Thuul for contacting the KhmerKrum media and Khmer Krom living abroad to provide infurmation abOlJt human 

rights violations against the Khmer-Krom. Venerable Lieu Ny was accused of not 

obeying the Vietnamese authority to defrock Venerable Thach Thoul by force. 

Additionally, Venerable Lieu Ny was ordered to resign as the Abbot of Ta Set temple 

in Vinh Hai village, Vinh Chau District, Soc Trang province. 
43


81340c-9.eps

The freedom of opinion and expression of Ven. Thach Thuol has been violated merely 

because he was contacted and interviewed by the Voice of Khmer-Krom "VOKK" and 

the Khmer-Krom living abroad. The Vietnamese authority keeps oppressing the 

Khmer-Krom Buddhist monks at Ta Set temple, because these monks have refused to 

join the Patriotic United Buddhist Association (PUBA - HOi Doim Ket Su Sai Yeu 

Nulrc). 

The Vietnamese authority has threatened to defrock Ven. Ly Chanda at Prey Chop 

temple, Lai Hoa commune, Vinh Chau district, Soc Trang province. 

On April 12, 2013, Mr. Ly Chhuon, the Editor-in-Chief of the PreyNokorNews 

magazine in Cambodia, his wife and his daughter left Phnom Penh, Cambodia, to visit 

his relatives in Kampuchea-Krom (Mekong Delta) dming the Cambodian New Year. 

His family wants to celebrate Cambodian New Year with his relatives in his homeland. 

When Mr. Ly Chhuon and his family arrived at the border of Cambodia and Vietnam, 

they were not allowed to enter Vieh1am and had been detained and searched by the 

Vietnamese custom officers. 111ey have been interrogated. 

There were many cases that the Khmer-Krom living abroad had been issued the Visa to 

visit their relatives in Mekong Delta, but when they arrived at the Ho Chi Minh airport 

or at the border checkpoints, they were denied the entry to Vietnam. 

On May 13, 2013, at 4pm local time, the Vietnamese polices of Soc Trang province 

arrested three Khmer-Krom women at Prey Chop commLllle, Lai Hoa village, Vinh 

Chau district, Soc Trang province. 111ese women arc: 

1. Mrs Lam Thi Xang Lan, born 1957 

2. Mrs. Ly Thi Danh, born 1970 

3. Mrs. Ly Thi Sa Bon, born 1965 

Mrs. Lam Thi Xang Lan and Mrs. Ly TI1i Danh were arrested at their horne and taken 

to imprison in Soc Trang province. Mrs. Ly Thi Sa Bon was sLlmmlmed, arrested, and 

imprisoned at the prison of Vinh Chau district, Soc Trang province. 111e Vietnamese 

authority arrested the above three Khmer-Krom women because they supported 

Venerable Ly Chanh Da. They did not want Viemamese authority to defrock Ven. Ly 

Chanh Da because he does not violate any Buddhist mles. 

On May 14, 2013, The Patriotic United Buddhist Association (PUBA - HOi Doim Ket Su 

Sai Yeu Nu6c) which is a Buddhist organization controlled by the Viemamese 

government issued an Announcement (So: 01(fB-HDKSSYN) to defrock three KhmerKrom Buddhist monks who practice Theravada Buddhism: 
44


81340c-10.eps

1. Venerable Lieu Ny, born 1986, at Ta Set temple, Vinh Hai commune, Vinh Chau 

district, Soc Trang province; 

2. Venerable 11,ach 11mol, born 1985, at Ta Set temple, Vinh Hai commune, Vinh 

Chau district, Soc Trang province; 

3. Yen. Ly Chanh Da, born 1988, at Prey Chop Temple, Lai Hoa commune, Vinh 

Chau district, Soc Trang province. 

On May 16, 2013, Venerable Ly Chanh Da was arrested, defrocked, detained and 

tortured. He was forced to confess his alleged crimes on the Viehmmese Television. 

The latest information from the villagers of Ta Set commune has revealed that 

Venerable Thach Thuol and Lieu Ny and two other persons, Thach Phum Rich and 

Thach Tha have been apprehended by Vicblamese Authorities on the evening of 20 

May 2013. Their where about location and condition are unknovvn at this point. 

Right to Education 

The Khmer-Krom children are not able to learn the rights of the child, as stated in the 

Convention on the Rights of the Child, in their Khmer language. The Khmer-Krom 

children are not allowed to study their true history in their language. 

There are no magazines or booklets in the Khmer language, for Khmer-Krom youth to 

express their opinions that are independently produced without the interference of the 

Vieblamese government. Khmer-Krom youth who are in high school have very limited 

access to public forums to express their opinion, especially on the internet. 

The Khmer-Krom people are hard-working farmers but some of fuem do not even have 

enough rice to eat because the expenses of farming are too high. The Khmer-Krom 

people are the poorest people in the Mekong Delta region. The poverty of the KhmerKrom affects the livelilloods of the Khmer-Krom youth and their future. In recent 

years, the percentages of Khmer-Krom students dropping OlJt of school are alarming. 

They have to help their parents on the farm or look for employment to help their 
45


81340c-11.eps

families make ends meet. Without education, the future of Khmer-Krom youth is bleak. 

There are millions of Khmer-Krom people in Kampuchea-Krom, belt very few hold a 

Master Degree or Ph.D. Vietnam has sent thousands of Vietnamese students to study 

abroad, especially in the United States, Canada, and Australia. But the Khmer-Krom 

students do not receive those benefits. 

Khmer-Krom students receive no benefit from scholarships that are generously offered 

by international governments and organizations due to the repressive policies of the 

Vietnamese government. Outside efforts to support the Khmer-Krom advancement of 

education is blocked because the government of Vieblam ties these efforts to political 

motives. 

Right to Freedom of Expression, Press and Information 

All the media in Vieb,am is controlled by the government to propagate the state's 

policies. There is no independent newspaper, magazine or television. The Vietnamese 

government even blocks the Khmers Kampuchea-Krom Federation Website 

(http://www.khmerkrom.org or http://www.khmerkrom.net) in Vieblam. 

On January 8,2012, A Khmer-Krom man (who has asked to remain unnamed for fear 

of his own safety) in Tra Vinh province told VOKK that the Vieblamese authorities 

ordered him to take down his Satellite dish because he watches television program 

broadcasts from Cambodia. He refused to take it down because he just wants to watch 

cultural programs from Cambodia. He's urged the international community and the 

Khmer-Krom in Vieblam to protect the basic right to receive information. 

Since the Khmer-Krom Buddhist monk students of a Pali school in Khleang (Soc Trang) 

province organized a peaceful protest to demand for their rights to practice their 

Theravada Buddhism in 2007, the Khmer-Krom students are not allowed to talk to the 

foreigners because the govenlment scared the foreigners who represent for the foreign 

Embassies in Vieblam or foreign reporters come to find out the truth about the living 

sihlation of the Khmer-Krom Buddhist monk shldents. 

On March 20, 2012, ten Khmer-Krom locals of Hoa Lac B hamlet, Binh Phu commune, 

Cang Long district, Tra Vinh province have been summoned to the district office and 

the whole province of Tra Vinh has been harassed and intimidated by the Vieb,amese 

authorities and the spy agents on ground that the Khmer-Krom locals have been using 

satellite-TV receivers to receive TV signals from Cambodia. The Cambodia's TV 

signals broadcast Khmer cultural shows and Theravada Buddhist teaching directly 

from Cambodia which are of great interests to the Khmer-Krom locals in the Mekong 

Delta who have tried to revive Khmer-Krom identity under the Hanoi's repressive 

regime. The Vicb,amese authorities have just issued a ban to the locals that they will 

be fined $200-to-$300 per person and/or face with jail term if any they ignore the State's 

order. 
46


81340c-12.eps

Right to Fonn Association 

Vieblam does not allow Khmer-Krom to form any association. Throughout Mekong 

Delta, there is neither ill dependently Khmer-Krom association nor Khmer-Krom 

student club. 

The Khmer-KlOm people have two traditional sports: Dragon Boat Racing and Ox 

Racing. Vietnam just allows them to organize the teams for competition to lure the 

tourist to bring benefits for the government. These sport teams are under heavily 

monitored by the local authorities. 

Right to Health 

Vietnam has ratified three international conventions that explicitly guarantee the right 

to health: The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, The 

Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the 

Convention on the Rights of the Child. Most of the Khmer-Krom people do not know 

of the existence of those international conventions. They do not understand that the 

health plOblems they face are human rights violations. 

Since 2003, the blindness issues of the Khmer-Krom in Soc Trang province are still 

prevalent. There are thousands of Khmer-Krom people who are affected by blindness 

of either the left or right eye, and in some case both eyes. The main plOblems that cause 

the blindness are from contaminated drinking water from their slJrr01.lIldings which 

are largely polluted by pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers. This plOblcm has been 

reported to the Vietnamese government, but the Vietnamese government has taken no 

Blind victims in Soc Trang and Bac Lieu provinces 

Vietnam claims that it provides free healthcare services to the etlmic minority 

populations, but the free healthcare service is not really free as the government claims. 

In order to receive a free Health Insurance card, the Khmer-Krom must be from a 

Khmer-Krom family that is categorized as "Hi? Nghco" which means a "household 

poverty". When they are sick, they go to the hospital and are treated as "second-class 

citizens" because they only pay about 5% of the total bills. Thus, despite the claim of 

free healthcare, they still face charges and discrimination. Some Khmer-Krom patients 

cannot even afford to pay that 5% and end up selling their farmlands or worthy 

belongings in order to get the treatment or receive the medication. 

If the Khmer-Krom families are not categorized as a household poverty, their family 
47


81340c-13.eps

members have to buy insurance. The Khmer-Krom people are poorest people in the 

Mekong Delta region. They barely make enough money to have food for their family. 

Thus, most of them do not have insurance. When they are sick, they go to the local 

hospital in their village. Some diseases cannot be treated by the doctors at the local 

hospital and they are sent to the hospital in the City, but many Khmer-Krom patients 

cannot afford the treatments and die as a result. 

Weight Loss Abnormally of Khmer-Krom Workers at a Cashew Factory 

There is a cashew factory called, Nong Gia 2, at Chau Lang village, Tri Ton district, An 

Giang province. There are about 400 workers working in this factory and most of them 

are Khmer-Krom. The working condition in this factory is horrible that is why only 

Khmer-Krom workers working there because they need a job to earn money to support 

their family. 

According to a woman who has her sons working for that cashew factory, the workers 

have to start working around 7am and finish their work around 6pm or 7pm. The 

workers work at least 11 hours a day, but they only make about $100 a month. 

Whoever get sick and cannot come to work, they are fined about $1 for each sick day. If 

they are sick more than three days, they are fired. 

Besides working long hours every day, the Khmer-Krom workers also expose to the 

bad smell from the cashew. The Khmer-Krom workers told their parents and relatives 

that they usually have bad sinus, coughing, and keep losing weight. They are all very 

skinny and their faces look pale. Because of scaring lOSing their job and do not have 

money to see Doctors, the Khmer-Krom workers do not know what kind of disease 

that they are having. 

Khmer-Krom Women Face Double Discrimination 

The Khmer-Krom women face many obstacles in all 

facets of the Vietnamese society. Institutionalized 

discrimination and lack of access to education keep 

Khmer Krom women in gendered roles with little 

opportunity to advance up the social and economic 

ladder. 

The Khmer-Krom women participating in peaceful 

protests have been beaten with electric baton and 

interrogated for watching human rights related 

activities. Tn 2008, a young Khmer-Krom woman, 

Mrs. Neang Savong helped her father, Mr. 01au In, 

to lead the Khmer-Krom farmers to demand 

Mrs. Neang Ni injured after an 

electric baton was used to 

silence her protests to demand 

returning her confiscated farm 

land in 2008. 

returning confiscated farmlands in An Giang province. She was beaten by Vieblamese 

police and got sick after that. She was discriminated and ignored for her treabnent at 

the Vietnamese hospital in Tri Ton district and Sai Con city. Unfortunately, she passed 

away on Saturday, September 25, 2010. 
48


81340c-14.eps

The lack of job opportunities in the provincial region has meant Khmer Krom girls 

have been forced to travel outside of their region and become victims of trafficking 

rings. A 20 year old Khmer-Krom woman, Mrs. Thach Thi Hong Ngoc left a poor 

village in Can Tho province to look for work in Saigon city. She fell into the arranged 

married trap to marry a Korean man, Jang Du Hyo, 47 years old, without knowing 

anything about him. She married him to get $500 for her family and left to live with 

him in Korea. Unfortunately, on July 8, 2010, shortly after her arrival in Korea, she was 

killed by her Korean husband. The Vietnamese government just media reports that she 

was a Vietnamese girl, not a Khmer-Krom girl. 

The Khmer-Krom people are living in POVERTY and FEAR. TI1ey mentality believe 

that they are just the second citizen in Vietnam. Whatever they demand, it would never 

be heard and might cause them to be imprisoned for just standing up for their 

fundamental rights. 

In this regards, the Khmers Kampuchea-Krom Federation would like to ask for your 

support to urge Vietnam to: 

;.. Respect the Khmer-Krom identity and culture. The Indigenous Khmer-Krom 

people should be allowed to refer to themselves as "Khmer-Krom". The 

Vietnamese government should stop using Khmer-Krom as puppet performers 

to entertain tourists for the Vietnamese government's benefit. Khmer-Krom 

history should be taught in public schools. The name of villages, districts and 

provinces where the Khmer-Krom people are living should converted back to 

their original Khmer names. 

" Unconditionally release Venerable Lieu Ny, Venerable Thach Thuol, Thach 

Phum Rich and Thach Tha. 

;.. Be held accountable for the torture of Venerable Lieu Ny and Venerable 

Thach Thuo!. 

" Stop and eliminate all fonns of arbitrary SUllllllons, arrests, detention, torture 

and confession by force of the alleged crimes that Vietnam allegedly accuses 

Khmer-Krom of, just like Vietnam did to Ven. Ly Chanh Da of Prey Chop 

temple. 

" Be rClnindcd that religious freedom is a right, not a privilege granted by 

government. 

,.. Allow the Khlncr-Krolll to have basic frccdolns so they arc not living in feaY. 

They should be allowed to freely defend themselves in front of the Vietnamese 

judiCial system. The Vietnamese government should stop accusing KhmerKrom people of "disulrbing the Vienlamese society" using Article 87 of 

Vietnam's Panel Code to imprison them whenever they stand up for their 

fundamental rights. 

'" Ratify the Convention Against Torhue so Vieblanlese police do not use torhu€ 

against prisoners. 

,.. Provide a political cnVirOl1lnent to allow the people in Vichlaln to freely 

exercise their rights to vote for the people and party that they want without 

interference from the government. 
49


81340c-15.eps

" Stop using Khmer-Krom officers who \'\lork for the goven1lllent to oppress their 

ovvn people. The Khmer-Krom officers should represent the Khmer-Krom to 

raise their voice and protect their rights. 

,... Allow Khmer-Krom to travel abroad freely and stop monitoring and sending 

police to intimidate Khmer-Krom who come from abroad to visit their relatives 

in Vietnam. 

,... Allow Khmer-Krom B'Jddhist monks to create an independent religious 

organization free from interference from the government. Allow Khmer-Krom 

to freely practice their Theravada Buddhism. They should not have to ask for 

permission to practice or even just to organize a simple Buddhist ritual. Remind 

Viehlam that religious freedom is a right, not a privilege granted by 

government. 

);- Allow Khmer-Krom to have freedom of press, freedom of expression, and 

freedom of belief. Also allow the freedom to organize the associations that are 

already stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, (and even in 

Vietnam's constitution). 

);- Strengthen the pro-poor health policies to ensure that all Khmer-Krom people 

have access to quality health services. 

" Implclllent policies and lcgislation to protect Khlllcr-Krolll girls and provide 

active educational campaigns and informational sessions in both Vietnamese 

and Khmer so that they can be better informed of the danger of human 

trafficking. 

" Allow the Khmer-Krom children to freely study their native language in public 

schools starting from kindergarten. The Khmer language should be recognized 

as an official language in Kampuchea-Krom. All applications including forms, 

signs and legal documents should be written in both Khmer and Viehlamese. 

);- Establish an Independent International Human Rights Institution that would 

work with the State party. ThTlllJgh this institution, the IndigelllllJs Peoples, 

especially the Khmcr-Krom, would be able to address their concerns and needs. 

The institution would also serve as an ideal place for the wide dissemination of 

the steps that have been taken to ensure de jure and de facto equality of 

Indigenous Peoples, as well as the further steps that are rec]lJired. 
50


81340g.eps

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51

Mr. SMITH. Venerable Danh Tol, thank you very much for your 

testimony and for sharing with us the horrific experience that you 

encountered as your religious freedom was violated. 

Mr. John Sifton. 

STATEMENT OF MR. JOHN SIFTON, ASIA ADVOCACY 

DIRECTOR, HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH 

Mr. SIFTON. Thank you, and thank you for inviting me to testify 

as well in today’s hearing. Today’s date is June 4th. It’s, of course, 

a day of infamy among human rights groups and it’s fitting and 

proper that we remember why for a moment. 

It was on this day in 1989 that the Chinese Army in a vanguard 

of tanks and bullets pushed across the streets of Beijing to end the 

massive protest at Tiananmen Square and countless people were 

killed on that day 24 years ago calling for democracy and freedom. 

That quest, the quest for human rights, is, of course, not limited 

to China and it didn’t die at Tiananmen. In Vietnam today, people 

from really across the spectrum of society are regularly engaging 

in protests and other forms of free speech. 

All kinds of people—students and workers and teachers and 

farmers and bloggers and religious leaders and even former police 

and soldiers, Vietnam’s citizens criticizing their government, reporting on corruption and poor governments or even mocking the 

Communist Party’s stridency. 

There was a protest just 2 days ago in Hanoi criticizing the government for its China policy and, of course, it bears remarking here 

that many of these protests are resulting in arrests and convictions. They’re involving dissidents protesting land seizures. A lot of 

these protests are about that. 

The record is getting worse. We now know that in 2012 40 people 

are known to have been convicted and sentenced to prison for 

peaceful dissent cases. 

This was an increase from 2011 which itself was an increase 

from 2010 and already this year, in the first 5 months of this year, 

more than 50 people have been convicted now in political trials 

which more than matches last year’s record. 

So to repeat that, in the first few months of this year more people have been convicted in political trials than in the whole of last 

year in Vietnam. 

Since I last testified in April there have been almost no improvements, just more prison sentences. On May 16th, two activists, 

Nguyen Phuong Uyen and Dinh Nguyen Kha, were sentenced to 6 

years and 8 years in prison respectfully. 

These women were sentenced—this one woman and one man 

were sentenced for handing out pamphlets. A 21-year-old woman is 

going to jail for 6 years for handing out pamphlets. 

On May 26th, just a week ago, police arrested blogger Truong 

Duy Nhat and charged him with abusing democracy and infringing 

on the interests of the state, a violation of Article 258. 

And on May 28th, just a few days ago, there was a trial of eight 

ethnic Montagnards arrested in June of last year. They were convicted of violating Article 87, undermining national unity. 

Most of them received sentences of 7 to 11 years in prison, and 

on May 5th, earlier in the month, the case of these human rights 

52

picnics occurred. In four separate cities police broke up peaceful 

human rights picnics at which young bloggers and activists were 

disseminating and discussing the Universal Declaration of Human 

Rights. 

Peaceful protests where people were sitting in parks reading 

aloud the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were broken up 

violently and some of the people had their laptops confiscated and 

when they went to police stations to attempt to get them back one 

of them was punched in the face, his mother was burned with a 

cigarette on her forehead and her sister had her teeth knocked out. 

This was on May 5th. The anti-China protests I mentioned just 

this past Sunday ended with arrests and more beatings by police 

as well. So in summary, the trend lines are showing a worsening 

situation. 

It’s not just another bad year in Vietnam. I also want to give the 

subcommittee a update with respect to media freedom, an important issue that’s come up lately. As Human Rights Watch and 

other groups have reported previously, the government continues to 

engage in blocking and filtering of Internet Web sites but recently 

the authorities also tightened rules on television. 

Authorities promulgated a new restriction known as Decision 20, 

requiring that outside broadcast companies licensed to carry cable 

or broadcast in Vietnam, for instance CNN and BBC, they have to 

pay for translational editing of their content. 

This is censorship, the editing part at least, and this will be performed by a Vietnamese agency licensed by the government. 

The regulation also notes that content can only be broadcast 

which is appropriate to the people’s healthy needs and does not violate Vietnamese press law. 

There are, of course, many other human rights issues to discuss 

with Vietnam, religious persecution chief among them, land evictions, which we’ve already heard about, a ban on all unauthorized 

unions and other labor organizations and administrative detention 

and forced labor for alleged drug users—40,000 people in administrative detention without due process for alleged drug use. 

Some of them are drug users. Others are not. But either way, 

forced labor in forced labor camps. Show trials with courts that 

lack independence continue and in addition to all this the basic 

brutality. Police regularly engage in mistreatment, sometimes torture. They beat detainees and even produce fatalities. 

So this is Vietnam today. The nation’s governance is characterized by brutality and systematic suppression of freedom of expression, association, peaceful assembly with frequent persecution of 

those who question the government’s actions or call for democratic 

alternatives. 

So what can the United States do about it? It’s time for the 

United States Government to see things for what they are. 

There was a hope a few years ago among administration officials 

that attempting a military strategic dialogue with Vietnam and 

opening trade negotiations in the context of a bilateral investment 

treaty or in the Trans Pacific Partnership might serve as an incentive to the government to make changes and perhaps soften its authoritarian edge. 

53

It now appears that that hope was misplaced. Vietnamese authorities have not unclenched their fists. So Human Rights Watch 

would urge this subcommittee and the other subcommittee in tomorrow’s hearing to keep asking the Obama administration very, 

very tough questions about its continuing dialogue with Vietnam. 

And I think it might be useful to talk realistically about what exactly the United States can do to change the Vietnamese Government’s behavior and weigh what kinds of things would impact 

them more than others. 

Cutting all assistance to Vietnam in the generality might sound 

good but in practice it means cutting assistance to Agent Orange 

remediation, to PEPFAR for vital HIV/AIDS interventions, to global health programs for drug-resistant tuberculosis. 

These are things which perhaps the Vietnamese Government 

would care less if the United States cut them and yet doing so 

would have real impacts for ordinary Vietnamese citizens. 

So it might not be appropriate to just cut all U.S. assistance. Instead, the right questions would be asking the administration what 

really hurts the Vietnamese Government. 

Is it suspending negotiations with Vietnam in the context of bilateral trade investment treaties, the TPP? If the Pentagon pulls 

back on its engagement? If the Pentagon puts up a complete brick 

wall to any discussion of lethal arms transfers ever and makes it 

very clear that none of that will happen unless very stringent 

standards are met? 

We at Human Rights Watch think the time has come to start 

asking those kinds of tough realistic questions about what exactly 

the U.S. hopes to do to get Vietnam to change its behavior. 

It’s not just another year in Vietnam’s long sad history. It’s been 

one of the worst years in quite a long time and I think it’s time 

for U.S. foreign policy to change. 

Thank you for your time. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Sifton follows:]

54


81340e-1.eps

Committee on Foreign Affairs 

Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, 

Global Human Rights, and International Organizations 

Hearing of June 4, 2013: Continuing Repression by the Vietnamese Government 

Testimony of John Sifton 

Asia Advocacy Director 

Human Rights Watch 
55


81340e-2.eps

Thank you for inviting me to testify in today's hearing. Todays date, June 4, is of course a day of 

infamy among human rights groups. Early in the morning on this day in 1989, the Chinese army, a 

vanguard of tanks, batons, and bullets, pushed through the streets of Beijing to end a massive 

protest in Tiananmen Square. Countless people were killed on that day 24 years ago, calling for 

democracy and freedom. 

But that quest, the quest for human rights, is of course not limited to China and it did not die at 

Tiananmen. In Vietnam today, people from across the spectrum of society regularly engage in 

protests and other forms of free speech-students, workers, teachers, journalists, farmers, 

musicians, bloggers, lawyers, former police and former soldiers-Vietnamese citizens criticizing 

their government, reporting on corruption and poor governance, or mocking the Communist Party's 

stridency. There was a protest just two days ago, in Hanoi, criticizing the government in relation to 

its China policy. 

Protests in Vietnam, however, do not go unmolested. Acts of dissent in Vietnam are met with 

repression, and over the last year, more and more Vietnamese dissidents have been convicted and 

sent to jail. Acts of dissent are violations of Vietnam's authoritaria n penal code, which prohibits 

public criticism of the government and the communist party. As Human Rights Watch has reported 

previously, in 2012, at least 40 people are known to have been convicted and sentenced to prison 

for peaceful dissent, an increase from 2011, which itself was an increase from 2010. And in the first 

five months of this year alone, more than 50 people have been convicted in political trials, more 

than matching the total for 2012. To repeat: in the first few months of 2013, more people have 

been convicted in political trials as in the whole of the last year. In addition, as I noted in testimony 

earlier this year, thuggish harassment of dissenters also seems to be on the rise. 

Since I last testified, a few months ago, there have been almost no improvements, just more prison 

sentences. On May 16, two women bloggers, Nguyen Phuong Uyen and Dinh Nguyen Kha, were 

sentenced to 6 years and 8 years in prison respectively. On May 26, 2013, just a few days ago, 

police arrested blogger Truong Duy Nhat and charged him with "abusing democracy [and] infringing 

upon the interests of the state," under article 258 of the penal code. On May 28 the authorities also 

held a trial of eight ethnic Montagnards who had been arrested in June 2012. The eight were 

convicted for violating article 87 of the penal code, undermining national unity, and most of them 

received sentences from 7 to 11 years in prison. And on May 5, 2013, authorities in four cities broke 

up peaceful "human rights picnics" at which young bloggers and activists planned to disseminate 

and discuss the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other human rights documents. The 

anti-China protests just this last Sunday ended with arrests and more beatings by police. 

So the trend-lines show a worsening situation. But it should still be noted that none of this is new. 

Vietnam has unjustly imprisoned political prisoners for decades. Several of its current political 

prisoners have been in detention for decades. And in some instances these prisoners have been 

denied proper medical care for deteriorating health conditions. 

One update is necessary with respect to media freedom. As Human Rights Watch and other groups 

have reported previously, the government continues to engage in blocking and filtering of internet 

websites. Recently, Vietnamese authorities also tightened rules on television, promulgating a new 

restriction, known as "Decision 20," requiring that outside broadcast companies licensed to be 
56


81340e-3.eps

carried by cable or local broadcast in Vietnam-for instance CNN and BBC-pay for translation and 

editing, and thus censorship, for their content, to be performed by an Vietnamese agency licensed 

by the government. The regulation also allows only content which is "appropriate to the people's 

healthy needs and does not violate Vietnamese press law." And all commercials running on foreign 

channels must be made in Vietnam. 

There are, of course, many other human rights issues to discuss with respect to Vietnam. Religious 

persecution. Land evictions without process. A ban on all unauthorized unions and other labor 

organizations. Show trials, with courts that lack independence and trials that do not meet fair trial 

standards. And in addition to all this, the routine brutality: police regularly engage in mistreatment 

of those in their custody, and sometimes torture and beat detainees, even producing fatalities. 

Administrative detention and forced labor for alleged drug users is another major problem. 

Vietnamese laws and regulations continue to authorize mass detention of drug users and alleged 

drug users, more than 40,000 in 2012. Over 120 centers across the country hold people, including 

children, pursuant to this administrative regime, run by Vietnam's Ministry of Labor and not subject 

to any form of due process or judicial oversight. Detainees in the system, as Human Rights Watch 

has reported in the past, are subjected to forced labor-or "labor therapy" at the government 

euphemistically calls it. The labor includes cultivation and processing of agricultural and other 

products-some of which have entered the US trade stream. 

So this is Vietnam today: a nation's governance characterized by brutality and systematic 

suppression of freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly, with frequent 

persecution of those who question the government's actions or call for democratic alternatives. 

What can the United States do about it? 

It is time for the United States government to see things for what they are. There was a hope, a few 

years ago, that attempting a military strategic dialogue with Vietnam, and opening trade 

negotiations in the context of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, might serve as an incentive forVietnam 

to make changes, and perhaps soften its authoritarian edge. It now appears that this hope was 

misplaced. Vietnamese authorities have not unclenched their fists. 

Human Rights Watch would urge this subcommittee, and the full committee, to ask the Obama 

administration tough questions about its continuing dialogue with Vietnam. At what point, one 

might ask, should the U.S. government take action in relation to Vietnam's continued 

intransigence? At what point, for example, might the U.S. government consider bypassing Vietnam 

in TPP and other bilateral trade negotiations, and begin reviewing its military engagements? 

From the perspective of Human Rights Watch, we believe that time is now. 

Thank you for allowing me to testify today. 
57

Mr. SMITH. Thank you so very much, Mr. Sifton. 

It is an honor to recognize the chairman of the full committee, 

Congressman Ed Royce. 

Mr. ROYCE. And I appreciate that and let me share with you all 

why I think it’s so important, Chris, that you’ve held this hearing 

today. 

The subcommittee chairman has held this hearing because tomorrow at 2 o’clock o’clock we’re going to have the State Department here with us as I’m sure he’s mentioned and what I really 

want to glean from this hearing today is—goes to the issue of is 

it the problem of the State Department not pushing hard enough 

in these meetings? 

Is it a question of not having an agenda for the meetings that 

they’ll have coming up with the government in Hanoi? What specifically should we be saying? 

I know one thing is for sure and that is the report that I have 

read is the antithesis of the report from Human Rights Watch. 

Human Rights Watch documents the same types of abuses that 

I hear from my constituents and that I see in the press. On the 

other hand, the State Department reports that the government continued to ease restrictions placed upon most religious groups. 

In other words, what I am reading in the State Department report from last year I no longer believe and I thought I’d start, Mr. 

Sifton, by asking you because you’ve read the report. 

The government generally respected the religious freedom of 

most registered religious groups, says State, and then I go through 

Human Rights Watch and these other reports as well as the reporting from the international news media and I get the facts. 

And how do we—how do we try to determine what the purpose 

is of the State Department in understating the human rights 

abuses? What’s your read on that? 

Mr. SIFTON. Well, obviously, I would defer—I would ask that that 

question be placed firmly into the State Department’s court tomorrow—is there any reason we can trust that this is an accurate report, given the discrepancies that you’ve mentioned. 

The key word in the passage you just mentioned was registered. 

It’s easy enough to say that Vietnam respects the rights of registered religious groups. 

Mr. ROYCE. Well, this was the point that the Venerable Thich 

Quang Do made to me when I visited him. He was under house arrest and he said the reason we’re not going to register, the reason—we don’t want to change our text. 

We don’t want to change our holy books to what the party wants 

us to do because this is our religion. It’s not the Communist Party 

manifesto, essentially. 

He didn’t use those words but he said this is our religion so we 

want to—we don’t want to make these changes, and I gather from 

what I’ve heard from the Hoa Hao and the Cao Dai Buddhist 

Church and what I’ve heard from others is that when you come 

under the control of the government it means that you also have 

to suppress part of the teachings in order to—and so if we’re overlooking everybody who’s independent it means we’re overlooking 

everybody who’s trying to exercise their religious—their religion 

independent of state control. 

58

Maybe I could ask some of the other participants about that and, 

John, do you have any other observations on that? 

Mr. SIFTON. All I would say is I think the report does contain 

some information about some of the abuses that are happening and 

the main State Department report obviously is pretty unvarnished. 

I should also note that the U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom has an excellent report. 

Mr. ROYCE. Yeah, they have an excellent report. Yeah. 

Mr. SIFTON. At the end result, though, the question is what is 

the State Department going to do about it. I think that they are 

pushing hard and they do have an agenda. 

The question is when do you give up and when do you say Vietnam, you’re not negotiating with us in good faith. We don’t get a 

sense that you’re going to change your behavior and when do you 

then change your context and say I’m going to stop negotiating 

with you. We’re not going to keep expanding these Pentagon milto-mil relationships——

Mr. ROYCE. Yes. 

Mr. SIFTON [continuing]. Until you get better. 

Mr. ROYCE. Let’s hear from some of the other panelists. 

Mr. THANG. Yes, I would like to follow up on your question, Mr. 

Chairman. 

One question that should be asked tomorrow of the State Department officials is that how many registered churches there are in 

Vietnam compared to how many churches that have tried to register but have not been allowed to, such as the Khmer Krom Buddhist Church has not been allowed to and we have a list—about 

651 Hmong Protestant Churches that have tried for many, many 

years to register but they have not been allowed to. 

The same question would be like this. Now since the State Department doesn’t have access directly to those members of the unregistered churches, have they tried to talk to people like the Venerable Danh Tol right here? 

We brought him to the State Department last year suggesting 

that they should interview him and others like him to obtain accurate information for the next report on international religious freedom. 

They didn’t do that. The copy that they just released didn’t contain any interviews with the witnesses that are available here right 

here in the U.S. So why—how many have they interviewed, have 

they talked to? Those would be the two questions I’d like to suggest. 

Mr. ROYCE. Other observations? The Venerable Danh? 

Ven. TOL. First, I would like to—first of all, I would like to stress 

that the violations of the Khmer Krom Buddhist monks in particular are ongoing. 

And the reason why the Khmer Krom Buddhist monks doesn’t 

want to register their faith with the Government of Vietnam it will 

slow down—it will force all the Theravada Buddhism faith to have 

to ask for the permission from the government for any ritual. 

And the arrest of the Khmer Krom Buddhist monks by the Vietnamese Government is to eliminate their belief of the Theravada 

Buddhism of the Khmer Krom Buddhist monks. 

59

The reason why the Khmer Krom Buddhist monks exist at this 

moment just because of the existence of the Khmer Krom temples 

in the Mekong Delta. The customs, the cultures and the practices 

of the Khmer Krom people are emanated from the Khmer Krom 

temples. 

This is the reason why they’re forcing the registrations of every 

Buddhist, of every religious sect is in order to eliminate the religious faiths of the followers. 

The Khmer Krom Buddhist monks have not been able to access 

any public media either through Internet or through the public 

media or to newspapers and the reason why the Government of 

Vietnam does not want them to know about it is in order to force 

them not to recognize the Buddhist. 

And we’d also like to thank our Vietnamese brothers and sisters 

for being here with us and to support the reporting on the violations of the human rights of the Government of Vietnam. And 

Khmer Krom is also a human being—one of the human—of the 

family of human beings. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROYCE. Yeah, let me close with this. One of the—one of the 

cases that really captured my attention was the Reverend Nguyen 

Hong Quang who was interrogated over 200 times, beaten several 

dozen times and we talked about the disparate sentencing. His latest sentencing was 15 years. 

So, clearly, for those who are not knuckling under to the regime 

the consequences can be brutal. I’ve seen photographs after the 

beating and—beatings, I should say. I mean, it’s relentless. 

So given this reality, I think it’s important—and I know the 

State Department is following this hearing today—I think it’s important that when they come here tomorrow they have a concrete 

idea of how to explain the agenda, a concrete agenda, in what 

they’re going to say and do in these negotiations and what we’re 

going to offer up by way of leverage in order to get to some modicum of humanity in terms of the way people are treated with respect to religious liberty and other freedoms in Vietnam. 

And Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Chairman Royce. 

And let me just ask a couple of questions and I’ll yield to my colleagues. And, you know, Mr. Sifton, you mentioned, that if we enforce some of the current laws including the Foreign Assistance Act 

of 1961 as amended in 1964, then that might be counterproductive. 

And I know you know this—the Vietnam Human Rights Act 

makes it very clear that humanitarian and health initiatives including the Agent Orange, HIV/AIDS, and the combatting human 

trafficking moneys that we provide to Vietnam would be exempted. 

The idea is to really hold this country and this government to account in a very calibrated and focused way. So, I think your point 

was very well taken. 

Dr. Thang, you do point out that the U.S. laws are very clear toward any foreign government that confiscates the properties of U.S. 

citizens and you cite the 1949 International Claims Settlement Act, 

the Foreign Assistance Act and the Trade Act, which precludes conferring GSP if a country has nationalized, appropriated, or otherwise seized property of U.S. citizens or corporations without proVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:15 Nov 03, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00063 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\060413\81340 HFA PsN: SHIRL
60

viding or taking steps to provide prompt, adequate and effective 

compensation or submitting such issues to a mutually agreed 

forum for arbitration. 

It is beguiling and disappointing that the administration has not 

used existing law to really aggressively push the interests of American citizens as you all have so eloquently stated in your testimonies. If you want to elaborate on that, I would welcome you to 

do it. 

And Dr. Thang, you point out that repeated appeals by Vietnamese-Americans for equal treatment have been ignored by the 

present administration. 

The U.S. Department of State Legal Adviser’s office, which is 

tasked with the responsibility of representing U.S. citizens in disputes has set three conditions. You go through those three conditions, which have been met by Ms. Ngo, as she pointed out. 

But then you make a very, very important point, that the Legal 

Adviser at the State Department said contact and hire an attorney 

in Vietnam to help you pursue any rights and remedies, and as you 

point out, there is no local remedy. It does not exist. 

I would point out for the record that when I met with Nguyen 

Dai, a lawyer in Hanoi who subsequently was arrested, harassed, 

he was trying to raise simple human rights issues and for that the 

fist of the dictatorship came down upon him extraordinarily hard. 

This needs to be a government-to-government endeavor, not 

‘‘Here, go find yourself a lawyer somewhere in Vietnam and good 

luck,’’ because as you say, there is no remedy. 

If you could expand on that. Not only does it put the lawyer and 

the individual at risk, it is a fruitless endeavor and I’m amazed 

that the Legal Adviser would make such a suggestion. 

Mr. THANG. Actually, Attorney Nguyen Van Dai, whom you have 

met, tried to help on a number of cases and again and again the 

government said no, and not only that, as Congressman Cao——

Mr. SMITH. Cases of——

Mr. THANG. Yes, of confiscated properties of U.S. citizens. And 

Congressman Cao pointed out that there was a resolution passed 

by the National Assembly of Vietnam on November 26, 2003, declaring without any ambiguity that the Vietnamese Government 

will not return the properties that they have confiscated from anyone who had left Vietnam including hundreds of thousands potentially of Vietnamese-Americans, period. 

So there’s no point in spending and wasting more time and 

money hiring lawyers in Vietnam to fight the system that has declared that they are not going to return the properties. 

And therefore that’s why we really need the intervention of this 

government, and the laws are very clear. They have been implemented multiple times including against Vietnam for claims 

against Vietnam. 

How come that when it comes to Vietnamese-Americans the 

same laws don’t apply? And we wonder very much about that. 

Mr. SMITH. You mentioned that Boat People SOS launched an 

online petition to President Obama on the We the People Web site 

and you stated our President should demonstrate his commitment 

to defending the rights and interests of U.S. citizens by applying 

prohibition clauses of the Foreign Assistance Act to Vietnam, callVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:15 Nov 03, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00064 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\060413\81340 HFA PsN: SHIRL
61

ing on its government to freeze further expropriations of U.S. properties and conditioning GSP or any further trade benefits on the 

return of all properties that belong to U.S. citizens or payment of 

fair compensation. 

You say that you collected well in excess of 25,000 signatures 

within 3 weeks’ time and to this date there is no response? 

Mr. THANG. There has been no response 10 months later. 

Mr. SMITH. Let me ask the Venerable Danh Tol—one of the 

issues that I’ve raised repeatedly with interlocutors in Vietnam and 

with the State Department is about the registry. I thought your 

question was great for tomorrow, Dr. Thang, but as we all know, 

the Vietnamese Government sets up parallel faith bodies. 

That’s why the Venerable Thich Quang Do can’t operate anymore 

because they just outlawed the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam and then they turn around and set up a shell of an organization that they control. 

What has been your response if any and anyone’s response from 

the State Department in doing this? You know, it seems to me that 

when we talk about registering and not registering well, the real 

issue is that they’re setting up bogus organizations to be the faith 

community for that particular denomination or belief system. 

Ven. TOL. I believe that—I believe that if they register and the 

inclusions of the Theravada Buddhism together with the United 

Buddhist Church Association in Vietnam I believe that the Government of Vietnam will continue to oppress and then oppress the 

Khmer Krom Buddhist monks, never stop—never stop oppressing 

them. 

Another reason is that the Government of Vietnam right now 

just don’t want to help the Theravada Buddhism faith in existing 

in the Mekong Delta. 

And another reason I would like to leave here with the committee that there is also demonstrations in Vietnam from various 

sects of the Buddhist monks but why there were not any forced defrocks of the Buddhist monks with the exception of the Khmer 

Krom Buddhist monks have been forced to defrock and to tortures 

and to be imprisoned. 

This is to show that the Government of Vietnam just does not 

want to see the Khmer Krom Theravada Buddhism’s continued existence in the Mekong Delta. 

That’s why I would like to urge the committee to help Vietnam 

respect and then having the Khmer Krom Buddhist monks forming 

its own independent organizations independently from the government Buddhist organizations right now and to respect the religious 

belief of the Khmer Krom Buddhist monks. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. Let me just ask one final question and then I’ll yield 

to Mr. Meadows. 

Dr. Thang, in your testimony you talked about how on the heels 

of the U.S. human rights dialogue that the violation of human 

rights actually intensified. 

It’s deplorable, as you put it, but not surprising and you point 

out—and this is a very important paragraph—in April the U.S. delegation led by the Department of State was in Hanoi for a 1-day 

dialogue on human rights. 

62

It was attended by Vietnamese rank and file government officials. Ten days later, a large U.S. delegation led by the acting U.S. 

Trade Representative spent 3 days to negotiate the Trans Pacific 

Partnership. They met with the Vietnamese President, the Deputy 

Prime Minister, several ministers and deputy ministers. 

The message to the Government of Vietnam was very clear. The 

U.S. cares more about trade and, I would add, profits, than human 

rights. It’s all about prioritization. Would any of you like to respond 

to that? 

They are your words, Dr. Thang, but it just sums it all up. They 

take the measure, they look us in the eyes and we say we’ve got 

to do an obligatory human rights dialogue, have a nice day, go and 

abuse all you’d like, and we don’t really care. 

And as you pointed out, up to a 1⁄2 million U.S. citizens of Vietnamese origin have had their properties confiscated. 

That’s very serious, plus, of course, the torture and the ongoing 

repression. It’s all about priorities and I am sickened at heart by 

the lack of prioritization of human rights toward Vietnam. 

And as Mr. Sifton pointed out, it is other countries as well. We 

had a hearing yesterday about Tiananmen Square twenty-four 

years later and Sophie Richardson from your organization testified 

about it and Wei Jingsheng and some of the great leaders of the 

Tiananmen Square movement which continues to this day as well 

as the repression. 

Again, no prioritization of human rights. It’s a bullet somewhere 

on a page, and that is so unfortunate, unnecessary and I would say 

deplorable. If any of you would like to respond—Mr. Sifton and 

then Dr. Thang. 

Mr. SIFTON. I would like to say that that’s exactly the right question to be asking the State Department. All I would say in their 

defense is that they’re not monolithic. The folks that went for that 

1-day dialogue did raise human rights and they raised the issues 

and they pushed the issues and even Ambassador Shear pushes the 

issues. 

The question is priorities. There are other parts of the State Department which are prioritizing trade preferences and improving 

all of that. 

So there’s a fight even within the State Department in which I 

think this committees and—the full committee and the other subcommittee can play a huge role in strengthening those parts of the 

State Department that actually want to do the right thing. 

But it might be useful to just focus for a second on what exactly 

is going on here with the religious persecution. You know, it looks 

like the government distrusts unregistered groups because they’re 

worried that they’re politically active and a risk to the party and 

they’re worried about them in the same way they’re worried about 

unions because whenever people without the approval of the government get together and start organizing it’s a threat to the party, 

and that’s what they’re worried about. 

To get them to not do that is going to require a heavy amount 

of pressure from outside authority because they really do fear—perhaps very paranoid but they do fear that unregistered religious 

groups are somehow a threat to their rule. 

63

Mr. THANG. Yes. Mr. Chairman, last year before the publication 

of the annual report of the State Department’s on international religious freedom the director of the Office of International Religious 

Freedom of the State Department went to Vietnam, met with the 

leadership of a Buddhist Church. 

And when we found—we asked—I talked to her and it turned out 

that she talked with the leadership of the Vietnamese Buddhist 

Sangha which was set up by the Government of Vietnam. She did 

not have any chance to talk to Venerable Thich Quang Do, for instance. 

She came back and a few weeks later the report was published 

and, clearly, the content was disappointing. And that’s why we 

brought a number of Khmer Krom Buddhist monks who have suffered, are witnesses and victims and we suggested that her office 

interview them to improve on the quality and the accuracy of this 

year’s report. Nothing happened, and they are here available. 

And I would like to say that your remark, Mr. Chairman, that 

the Vietnamese Government has been very deft at setting up bogus 

religious organizations to present to the world and that applies to 

many religions in Vietnam including the Cao Dai Church, whose 

representatives are back here. 

You see those men and women in white tunic right here sitting 

right here. They set up a bogus Cao Dai Church, likewise a bogus 

Hoa Hao Church—Buddhist Church, so on and so forth. 

So it is very imperative that we talk to the right churches that 

are truly independent, that are truly promoting religious freedom 

in Vietnam and not the ones that are set up by the government in 

Vietnam to cover up the abuses against religions. 

Now, I’d like to point out one other thing. Yes, we understand 

that there’s a need to balance concerns about human rights against 

other concerns, other strategic priorities of national interests of 

this governance and to the American people. 

However, I truly believe that defending the rights and the properties, the assets of American citizens, should not be trumped by 

any other national interest. It should be of the highest priority for 

this government. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank each of you for your testimony and I want to follow up 

a little bit on what you just highlighted, Mr. Sifton, if I can. 

You talked about we needed to put an emphasis to strengthen, 

I guess, the priority within the State Department where human 

rights gets the same, I guess, influence that the trade side of the 

State Department gets. 

How will—you know, if you were sitting in my seat how would 

you go about doing that? 

Mr. SIFTON. Well, unfortunately, I don’t think there’s any mechanical way to do it. But every time a House member a set of 

members or a hearing asks tough questions and pushes on the 

State Department, it reverberates around their offices in ways that 

perhaps you never get any feedback on. 

But I do know that the pressure gets to them and gets under 

their skin, and when there are questions about the human rights 

priorities not getting enough prioritization, it has an effect on the 

64

prominence that the trade part of the package is given—a negative 

impact. It just does. 

The problem is there are a lot of incentives behind that. I mean, 

there’s an enormous amount of money at stake and huge amounts 

of added profits that would accrue to Vietnamese business interests 

as well as American if GSP, for instance, goes forward. 

So on that side you have a lot of incentives that are financial and 

on the other side what you have is civil society and religious groups 

and human rights groups, and although they’re well organized and 

fervent and devoted, they just don’t have the same amount of resources. 

If you look at the comments from the GSP in 2008 that were solicited by the USTR, the majority of them are from corporations 

and trade groups and things like that and only a few are from civil 

society. That tells you——

Mr. MEADOWS. Are you suggesting that corporations aren’t civil 

society? 

Mr. SIFTON. What I mean is we will do our best but at the end 

of the day I think Congress will play a huge role in balancing the 

equation so that human rights are prioritized just as much because 

the 3-day to 1-day ratio is——

Mr. MEADOWS. Right. 

Mr. SIFTON [continuing]. Obviously inappropriate, given the severity of the abuses that are underway. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So are you saying that what the chairman pointed out in the 1-day versus 3-day priority that that is systemic? 

Is that something that you’ve seen over and over again, not just 

with Vietnam but with other countries where human rights abuses 

still occur? 

Mr. SIFTON. It’s certainly a problem worldwide but I think rather 

than focus on pushing each of the sides of the State Department 

as—to balance it out there’s another issue that needs to be discussed too, which is that there is a one-government policy in the 

administration. 

In reality, according to the policy, the U.S. Trade Representative 

is supposed to raise human rights issues. That’s how it’s supposed 

to work now. 

Every part of the U.S. Government, from the Commander in 

Chief of the Pacific Command to the U.S. Trade Representative to 

a visiting Under Secretary for who knows what who goes into 

Hanoi is supposed to raise human rights concerns in the context 

of whatever it is their dialogue is about. 

Unfortunately, that often doesn’t happen as much as it needs to. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, Chairman Royce pointed out earlier that 

maybe it does get raised but what the State Department is reporting back is that everything is looking rosy and that according to 

your testimony is not happening. 

Mr. SIFTON. I don’t think they say it’s looking rosy but definite—

because let’s be honest about that. The Embassy does put out statements and is pretty good and the rights report was pretty tough 

hitting. But in the grand scheme of things, no, the message is not 

coming back about the severity. 

65

There is a deteriorating situation. It’s not just another bad year 

in Vietnam. We have a trend line going down. More people going 

to jail, closing space, more and more tension. 

The economic concerns are obviously causing instability and then 

last but not least this land crisis—as land gets taken away in increasing amounts of hectares it’s going to cause more and more unrest and that’s going to have repercussions. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, with that trend trending down, I mean, 

would you say that that’s due more to civil unrest or government 

enforcement? 

Mr. SIFTON. It’s probably a perfect storm both of folks speaking 

out more but the government becoming more sensitive at the same 

time. So it’s kind of both sides are amplifying their actions and it’s 

going to cause further intensification. 

I mean, we’ve already gotten to 50 convictions this year. That 

puts us on par for about 120 by the end of the year——

Mr. MEADOWS. Right. 

Mr. SIFTON [continuing]. Which is an exponential increase since 

last year in political show trials. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So let’s go—and this is for the entire panel—let’s 

talk a little bit more because each one of you have highlighted 

about this confiscation of land. 

When they do that, when the government takes this land what 

do they do with it? Are they making money on it? Do they sell it 

to somebody? I mean, what happens? 

Mr. THANG. I can see two major reasons for the act of confiscating properties of Vietnamese people inside Vietnam of the different churches or that would have an impact also on VietnameseAmericans. 

The first one is corruption, greed. They want to take away land 

from the poor farmers to sell it back to developers and making a 

lot of money. They’re paying dirt cheap for what they took and 

they’re selling the land back to developers, like, 300 to 400 times 

more expensive. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Alright. So greed is——

Mr. THANG. That’s one. And also they’re using that as a tool for 

suppression, especially against the independent churches such as 

the Catholic Church, the Protestant Churches. If you don’t have 

land—you have property they evict you from your own parish 

there’s no way for that church to continue to function. 

That applies to the Khmer Krom Buddhist Church. That applies 

to the Cao Dai Church and the Hoa Hao Buddhist Church. It’s 

across the board. So land confiscation has been used as a tool for 

persecution against the churches. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So it’s basically, say, if you do it our way then 

we’ll let you keep your land. If you don’t do it our way, we’re going 

to take it away and there’s always that threat. So they essentially 

have compliance because of the threat of taking it away. Is that 

correct? 

Mr. THANG. That’s pretty much the case, Congressman. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Alright. 

Ms. NGO. I think the government claimed that the government 

owned the land and the owner of the land just has the right to use 

it only. 

66

Mr. MEADOWS. Right. So they own it and they give you a permit 

to be able to farm it or whatever——

Ms. NGO. Yes. 

Mr. MEADOWS [continuing]. And so it’s taking away that permit 

so it’s not actually confiscating the land but just the right to make 

a living on that land? 

Ms. NGO. Yeah. You rent the land for 20 years and after 20 years 

the government can take it back because they are the owner. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Alright. So do they—do they always keep that—

if they limit it to you for 20 years will they let that term expire 

or they’ll break the lease? 

Ms. NGO. Well, after 20 years if the owners obey and follow the 

rules——

Mr. MEADOWS. So if they are compliant. 

Ms. NGO. Yeah, compliant then they may extend the lease. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I see the Doctor is shaking his head. 

Mr. THANG. Well, in 2003 the same—they also issue a law, pass 

a law, the Land Law of 2003 allowing the government to recover—

that’s what they call it—recover the land that had been assigned 

to the people to use. 

Even though they might—the people have the right to use land 

but through the recovery process the government can take back, 

and that land law would allow the government to use coercion and 

force to recover the land from the people. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Okay. 

Mr. SIFTON. I just want to explain there is a—the crisis is brewing precisely because a lot of the leases I guess you would call them 

were given 20 years ago and are now coming up all at once right 

now. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So that’s part of this perfect storm is is that we’re 

right here and they’re about to be able to decide who goes forward 

and who doesn’t and——

Ven. TOL. I would like to inform the committee that even in my 

village where I was born there’s a confiscation of land of the Khmer 

Krom temples. The confiscation of land is the government used 

that land in order to build schools and a public school for the students. 

And then the followers of the temples was not able to demand 

a return of the land back to the temple for fear of persecution and 

arrest, and the use of the lands is for other purposes. 

The question is we would like to ask the committee to help us 

and to demand the government to return the land back to the temple. Thank you. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you. Let me finish with this and I’m going 

to yield back to the chairman after this—after I ask for your help 

on something. 

We’ve had a number of hearings here and as we have had these 

hearings one of the things that continues to come out is that the 

abuses are getting worse, not better. 

We are continuing to see over and over abuses that we would not 

tolerate in our country and yet Vietnam has kind of for a large part 

gone underneath the radar in terms of being highlighted as a particular area of concern even though, obviously, it is. 

67

Because of the TPP and because of the request for the GSP right 

now, we’re in a unique position to start to really highlight these 

human rights abuses. The perfect storm, as Mr. Sifton had talked 

about on other issues, I think we have a perfect storm right now 

as it relates to Vietnam. 

They can make a choice to go forward and prosper economically 

in ways that they have never even imagined or they can continue 

the human rights abuses that we’re seeing in—not only in this 

hearing but also in a previous hearing that—if they continue that. 

I can tell you there are a number of members who are willing 

to say no, who are willing to say that we are not going to go with 

a TPP. We’re getting lobbied on both sides already. 

The message needs to be clear back to their government that it 

is not a slam dunk. It is not something that is inevitable. But for 

me and many of my colleagues human right abuses are critical—

a critical component. 

There will not be a negotiation on economics only. It has to have 

a human rights aspect and the more than you can send us in terms 

of real stories, in terms of abuses—the pictures you showed today 

are a powerful testimony of what’s happening currently. You know, 

this is not years ago. 

It’s happening today, and we have to say enough is enough and 

stand by those who perhaps do not have a voice. I thank each of 

you for coming today and being that voice and I look forward to 

working with you to please get that to the committee and they will 

forward it on to us so that we can tell your story better. 

Thank you, and with that, Chairman, I yield back to you, Mr. 

Weber. 

Mr. WEBER. Thank you, Mr. Meadows, and I will go to my colleague on the right, Steve Stockman. 

Mr. STOCKMAN. Always on the right. I have a quick question. 

When I was there in Saigon, I was—I travelled outside and they 

had a very Western style suburban homes that American-Vietnamese were purchasing and I think they were purchasing them 

in cash, and they were very expensive even by American standards—$200,000, $300,000. 

I guess, Dr. Thang, how can those houses be—is that one of the 

reasons driving the confiscation of the land the development of suburban type homes there? 

Mr. THANG. There are a number of reasons. That’s one of the reasons. For instance, in the case of Con Dau Parish who are Catholic, 

they are a 135-year-old Catholic parish. In 2010, May 2010, the 

government of Da Nang City sent troops, hundreds of troops and 

tried to evict an entire village. 

They took over the village and the lands and turned that in an 

eco-tourism development project to be sold back to others—investors. 

So that could be one of the reasons but there are many other reasons. As mentioned before in my testimony, confiscation of land has 

been used consistently, repeatedly, routinely as a tool of persecution against the churches, the independent churches. 

So sometimes the land doesn’t have much value. Still, the government confiscates it just to push the church out and exterminate 

68

its existence. Without property, without an infrastructure, the 

church cannot exist anymore. 

Mr. STOCKMAN. I went to the Catholic Church there in Ho Chi 

Minh. 

Mr. Sifton, I have a question. It’s a little bit of a tangent. But 

how are the Vietnamese Government treating the government and 

the people of Laos? 

Mr. SIFTON. That’s a difficult question that our research doesn’t 

go into. But I would focus, again, on the land confiscation and just 

broaden out from something you said, which is it’s something 

which is affecting really all parts of society but it’s also affecting 

all the countries in the region, including Laos and Cambodia next 

door. 

And it might be useful to look at this not just from a Vietnamese 

perspective but look at it from the perspective of the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank funding projects, infrastructure 

projects—roads, water projects, other projects across this whole region, all of which involve moving people out of their homes and all 

of which involve the government being responsible for doing that 

work. 

And in all of these countries—Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos—

there are these problems with land confiscation. It’s just that in 

Vietnam there is absolutely no capacity to fight back and not be 

crushed by the authoritarian regime. 

Mr. STOCKMAN. How come they don’t combine the two delegations? I mean, that would make sense to me. No? Okay. 

Well, my question to follow up, I guess, is you talked about 

bloggers being caught. What kind of technology does Vietnam have 

to catch the bloggers and is it sold by American companies? 

Mr. SIFTON. Yeah, that’s a very, very good question. There are 

two things going on here. There’s filtering, which is not so much 

where the bloggers get caught but just Vietnamese Web sites are 

blocked and can’t be accessed from ISPs, from Internet service providers, inside of Vietnam. 

That blocking is becoming increasingly sophisticated. It’s still not 

very sophisticated if you compare it to China, but it’s getting better. 

The software and the hardware that’s required for that is coming 

from a panoply of companies, some in Europe, some in China, and 

there are—we don’t know directly whether U.S. companies have 

sold directly to the Vietnamese Government. 

But we do know that there are U.S. companies which manufacture software that the Vietnamese Government potentially would 

be interested in, which is why we supported efforts in Congress to 

introduce a licensing structure for software that can be used both 

for filtering and for identifying bloggers and other Internet users. 

This is basically software that can be used by authorities to either intercept communications and determine things about the 

users or software that can be used for filtering, for blocking sites. 

It would be a great idea if Congress passed a law that licensed 

the export of that software to make sure it doesn’t fall into the 

hands of governments like Vietnam’s. 

69

Mr. STOCKMAN. Well, I have a question which you may or may—

it may not be your expertise but what’s the percentage of coffee 

that is bought by Starbucks from Vietnam? 

Mr. SIFTON. I can’t answer that. 

Mr. THANG. Well, we don’t know. We don’t have those statistics. 

However, there is—it’s a widespread practice in Vietnam for the 

Vietnamese Government to confiscate land especially lands of the 

Montagnard because they live in high elevation areas. 

Mr. STOCKMAN. Right. 

Mr. THANG. And that’s very good conditions to grow coffee and 

that’s why many Montagnard at our village have been displaced to 

be turned the land, their land, ancestral land, that they lived on 

for hundreds of years. Of course, they don’t have any title to their 

land and they have been pushed away from that ancestral lands 

across Central Highlands. 

Mr. STOCKMAN. May I make a recommendation to your community? We have in this country just a large number of news outlets 

and information, a number of cable stations and you get information overload, and like light that’s dispersed it only works when 

you focus the light and it can cut metal. 

And I would tell you this. I think—you can correct my statistics 

on this—but I think Starbucks buys a large amount of coffee from 

Vietnam, and if you want to highlight your activity just a suggestion—I know how much trouble I’m going to get for this—but I 

think you ought to focus your efforts in communicating that and 

that they bring economic activity bearing down on the company 

that’s doing business with Vietnam. 

They and the Vietnamese Government understand money and I 

think that if we could somehow communicate that through that aspect I would just make a recommendation that you can apply pressure and the American companies will listen, and I will check those 

statistics but I believe it’s fairly high. 

I know that the beans in Vietnam are a little bit more bitter 

than some of the other beans around the world but they still make 

up a blend in the Starbucks coffee. 

That’s just my own personal take on it and—but I appreciate you 

guys coming out and I really am very grateful that you give us suggestions. 

All of you have gave us suggestions and many panels don’t do 

that on what we can do and I appreciate you extending to us advice. 

Mr. Sifton, also you’ve given us good advice on the software and 

you’ve also given us advice and all of you. I appreciate it, and we 

are very much in sympathy with you and we appreciate you taking 

the risk coming out here because I know that extended families 

could be persecuted for your stance and I appreciate your bravery 

coming out. 

And I yield back the balance of my time. Thank you very much. 

Mr. WEBER. Thank you, Mr. Stockman. Golly, let me follow up 

on what he just said, then I’ll yield to Mr. Rohrabacher here in a 

little bit, give him a minute to catch up. 

While he was talking about Starbucks I did a Google search on 

their Web site and found that they have a chairman’s report, and 

70

if you want something interesting on their Web site they have the 

following quote:

‘‘If everybody says I’m going to change one person at a time before you know it we’ve changed a neighborhood. We’ve changed 

a town. We’ve changed a city. We’ve changed the nation.’’

You might think about getting a hold of Starbucks, follow up on 

what Congressman Stockman said and say, you know, you guys are 

buying coffee, and maybe they could bring—they could bring some 

pressure to bear. 

Maybe they’ll wake up to that fact. I have a couple questions for 

you myself that I’d like to—and I don’t know who to direct it to. 

Perhaps you, Mr. Sifton, or maybe Dr. Thang. 

Is it—how many registered churches—you all talked about 

churches being registered and then the government registers fake 

churches. How many churches would you say are registered and 

then write them down for me. 

Mr. THANG. I don’t have the statistics on hand but I know that 

from the last count there were not more than scores of churches 

that have been registered compared to hundreds that have not 

been allowed to register. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. And is there an underground church movement? 

Mr. THANG. That’s what this is called for the Protestant Church, 

for instance. That’s called the house churches and they are being 

persecuted severely because the government doesn’t want the 

spread of house churches that they cannot control. 

Mr. WEBER. Would you hazard a guess? Is it 100,000, 10,000, 

1,000,000? 

Mr. THANG. Followers? Yes. I would say at least a few hundred 

thousand of the members of the house churches that are underground. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. And forgive me, I don’t know, but how many 

people—what’s the population of Vietnam? 

Mr. THANG. It’s about 90 million. 

Mr. WEBER. 90 million. Okay. Victims of human trafficking—do 

they have a really big problem with human trafficking? 

Mr. THANG. I think that Vietnam is the only country in the world 

that we know of where the government officially runs a trafficking 

ring through the labor export program. 

Mr. WEBER. That’s what I figured. What international organizations are there that have really taken that cause up and are trying 

to bring attention to it? 

Mr. THANG. There is the IOM, the International Organization of 

Migration, and they are funded by our own State Department to 

do anti-trafficking work in Vietnam. However, they may not have 

access to victims to assist, especially if those victims become victims under the government——

Mr. WEBER. The official government——

Mr. THANG [continuing]. Labor export program. 

Mr. WEBER. Sure. 

Mr. THANG. So far, they have not been able to serve too many 

if at all victims under the program. So they are not allowed by the 

71

Government of Vietnam to access the victims to provide the services. 

Mr. WEBER. How large is the Vietnamese population in the 

United States? 

Mr. THANG. There are about 1.6 million Vietnamese-Americans. 

Mr. WEBER. 1.6 million. And where would you say the largest 

concentration is? 

Mr. THANG. I think that’s in the district of Congressman Rohrabacher. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay, which is why he’s here, by the way. Let me 

say it this way. 

How often does that population get involved in petitioning the 

State Department or demanding some action? Is this—do they do 

it on a monthly basis? Is there a concerted effort? 

Mr. THANG. Yes. There has been a concerted effort. For instance, 

last year in March we launched a major campaign to the White 

House asking the President not to neglect human rights when his 

administration engages the Vietnamese Government in trade negotiations and unexpectedly we obtained about 150,000 signatures. 

We expected only 30,000 and the response was overwhelming—

150,000 signatures. 

Mr. WEBER. Well, that was a petition but how about a march or 

an activity where they show up at the White House? Any event 

being planned? 

Mr. THANG. Yesterday, there was a delegation of 150 of us at the 

White House. 

Mr. WEBER. Right. 

Mr. THANG. Last year we also came to the White House, a very 

big delegation of 150 or 160 Vietnamese-American advocates from 

across the country that came to the White House last year and we 

returned to the White House just yesterday. 

Mr. WEBER. I notice from just a little bit of research that David 

Shear, the Ambassador to Vietnam, apparently speaks Chinese and 

Japanese. 

Has he been brought into the conversation? Are people going to 

him and saying Mr. Ambassador, you know, you are our, I guess, 

head guy from the United States, head diplomat. Has he been 

made aware of this? 

Has there been a conversation with him that highlights this 

problem? Who does that? 

Mr. THANG. Well, I personally talked to him and pointed to him 

that all the convictions that the Vietnamese Government has 

claimed so far—for instance, against the traffickers—only involve 

the small fish sex traffickers. 

No prosecutions so far against the big fish that involves the government, the systemic problem of labor trafficking under programs 

run by the government, and Ambassador Shear did acknowledge 

that. 

There were zero prosecutions against labor traffickers and that 

was last year. 

Mr. WEBER. Did you raise the issue of the State Department’s report and what did he say about that? 

72

Mr. THANG. I raised it many, many times with the State Department, with his office, and they said that well, that’s according to 

their own data. 

We make the request that they should intervene people like the 

Venerable Danh Tol right here because we have legal team—a 

legal team in Thailand working to help to protect refugees who are 

fleeing out of Vietnam because the increasing persecution against 

political dissidents, against religious leaders, against bloggers. 

So we have victims who have been resettled in the U.S. so we 

are more than willing to provide them to the State Department to 

intervene and to collect information directly from the horse’s 

mouth. 

But so far there has been no intention or effort to talk to the victims who know very much about what’s going on on the ground. 

Mr. WEBER. Zero interest on the part of the State Department? 

Mr. THANG. We have seen zero interest so far. 

Mr. WEBER. Who is Vietnam’s largest trading partner? 

Mr. THANG. I am not sure about that, but the U.S. is ranked 

among the top. 

Mr. WEBER. Mr. Sifton, would you know? 

Mr. SIFTON. The United States is Vietnam’s largest export market. As for informal trade across the Chinese border, a lot of it’s 

not magnified so it’s very difficult to know for sure about overall 

trade. But the U.S. is their biggest overseas export market. 

Mr. WEBER. And what’s the number-one economic enterprise in 

Vietnam? 

Mr. SIFTON. That’s tough. I mean, look, I think in terms of the 

exports; the ones to focus on with Vietnam are seafood and clothing—textiles and finished clothing. 

Mr. WEBER. I guess my question is have you identified those 

companies that do business with Vietnam and of the 1 million plus 

Vietnamese that are here are we putting pressure on those companies not to buy products from slave labor, for example? 

Mr. SIFTON. Here’s the thing. When I think about what the regime would be most impacted from it would certainly be the case 

the Vietnamese tycoons would be upset if trade preferences weren’t 

extended and the export market didn’t grow as fast as they wanted 

it to and it might have an impact and they would then pressure 

their friends in the Politburo and so on and so forth. 

But when I think about a more direct pressure I just simply 

think that the Vietnamese military wants to buy lethal hardware 

from the United States military and the Pentagon is in fact holding 

the keys to the kingdom in terms of incentivizing them. 

And so far they’ve resisted that and there is no such lethal aid 

going to them. But they are the ones who are standing at the gatepost and the threshold and are the ones who can bring the message 

better than any U.S. corporation can about what Vietnam needs to 

do in order to get what it wants. 

Mr. WEBER. Does the Vietnamese Government respect intellectual property rights or are they more like the Chinese Government 

in that regard? 

Mr. THANG. No, sir. I went to Vietnam long ago and I came back 

with bootlegged pirated products of the U.S. and we continue to 

73

raise this issue with our own U.S. Trade Representative multiple 

times. 

There’s no true respect of intellectual property rights in Vietnam. 

There’s a lot of bootlegged application software in Vietnam. You can buy for $5 a DVD with all sort of applications from 

Microsoft, for instance, very cheaply inside Vietnam and there are 

so many DVDs produced by entertainment industry basing out of 

Orange County and there are bootlegged copies almost overnight. 

Millions of copies sold in Vietnam——

Mr. WEBER. Okay. 

Mr. THANG [continuing]. Illegally. 

Mr. WEBER. Alright. Thank you. 

Mr. Rohrabacher, I’m going to yield time to you now. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much and let me just note 

that I do represent a very large contingent of patriotic Americans 

who happen to trace their roots back to Vietnam and perhaps some 

of the most patriotic Americans because unlike their fellow citizens 

they know what it’s like not to have freedom and they also know 

first hand what is going on and what evil the tyrants are doing to 

other people in their ancestral homeland even as they succeed and 

become a more important part of the American system here in our 

American scene. 

I’d like to ask the panel this question about the Vietnamese community and are you recommending—just give me a very short answer please because I want to get this from all of you—are you recommending that we limit the amount of money invested in the Vietnamese economy by American capitalists? 

Should we—or is this something that we should be—some people 

think we should encourage in that type of investment, and just give 

me a very short answer for each one of you, please. 

Mr. THANG. I’ll go first. It should be conditioned on promoting 

human rights conditions in Vietnam. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. So we should not be encouraging them unless——

Mr. THANG. Unless. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER [continuing]. There are major human rights 

concessions? 

Mr. THANG. Exactly. 

Ms. NGO. I agree with that. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. 

Ms. NGO. We should put the condition of human rights before we 

invest more money to Vietnam. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Alright. 

Ven. TOL. I agree with the position of the other panel with the 

exception that the other countries should put more pressures on 

Vietnam to tie the economic tie—that economic prosperity to the 

human rights. 

Mr. SIFTON. I don’t think there are any investment restrictions 

right now. But one thing that I assume U.S. apparel and other suppliers and buyers would be interested in is loosening the trade 

preference rules that would basically allow Vietnamese goods to be 

even cheaper and imported into the U.S. and they would like that, 

and they—and as the co-panelists have said, it would be a good 

idea to put human rights restrictions on that. 

74

But I continue to believe that the bigger incentive to the regime 

to change is on the military front. That is the one area——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. We’ll talk about that in a minute. Okay. So 

your answer is what? 

Mr. SIFTON. The GSP seems like a nonstarter right now. The 

Trans Pacific Partnership is floundering. There’s a bilateral investment treaty which is——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. So we should not or should we encourage the 

American——

Mr. SIFTON. None of those things should go forward without 

stringent human rights standards. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Alright. 

Mr. SIFTON. None of them. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Considering the fact that those human rights 

standards aren’t in existence now are you telling the American people not to buy products that say made in Vietnam? Right down the 

line. No, no, let’s start over here. 

Mr. THANG. Well, what I’d like to point out it cannot be a short 

answer about——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. It’s got to be because I want everyone to comment on it. Do you want people—if the answer is yes, they should 

be able to—they should go ahead and buy or no, that’s—it’s one or 

the other. I mean, you can’t have it both ways. 

Mr. THANG. It depends. For instance, cashews, for instance. 

Human Rights Watch came out with their good report on cashews 

being produced using forced labor massively in Vietnam. So we are 

against buying cashews from Vietnam. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Cashews? 

Mr. THANG. Yes. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. You mean as in nuts? 

Mr. THANG. Nuts. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. And so you think that we should—they 

should go product by product? 

Mr. THANG. Yes. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. How about clothing? 

Ms. NGO. Clothing—if I go to Sears or Macy and I see the clothes 

made in Vietnam I won’t buy them. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. What about you? Clothing? 

Mr. THANG. I don’t buy my own clothes, actually. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Alright. You’re going to dodge that question. 

This guy doesn’t have to worry about clothing here. 

Ven. TOL. All the products I’m wearing are not made from Vietnam so we’re not buying a product from Vietnam, period. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. And what are you recommending? 

Don’t buy—don’t buy the suit? Buy the cashews or don’t buy the 

cashews or——

Mr. SIFTON. Cashews are a special case because forced labor was 

involved. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. 

Mr. SIFTON. But no, I don’t think boycotts usually are effective 

and——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. The answer is just go right ahead and 

buy that Vietnamese product even though there’s no unions that 

75

are permitted, even though if they tried to have a strike they’d be 

beaten down and arrested. 

Mr. SIFTON. I’d rather have that raised by the U.S. Trade Representative than by the American consumer because I don’t think 

the American consumer has the might to actually make it impact 

Vietnamese——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, we can see how much that influence 

with our Government wading in on the side of freedom has had 

such an impact in China over the years with all of the freedom 

they have there now. 

But, again, but there’s been some American companies that have 

made a lot of good money off that lack of freedom in China. I don’t 

think we should continue that trend in Vietnam. 

The Vietnam regime has learned that if they loosen the chains 

a little bit around the necks of their slaves, of their prisoners, that 

they’ll get more work out of them if they loosen the chains a little 

bit. 

I don’t think that we should be buying products from a country 

that has their population in chains. We should be for eliminating 

the chains that bind the people of Vietnam and elsewhere. 

So there’s—and let us note there has been all this optimism that 

more—as in China we all thought well, with more prosperity 

there’s going to be more freedom. And what have we heard today 

and I’ve been listening in off and on all day and there is not more 

freedom. 

There has actually been a crackdown and a decrease in the level 

of freedom in recent years. And so that theory that we’re going to 

have the World Trade Organization bureaucrat come over and have 

a nice cup of tea with the Communist Party boss that overseas 

the—you know, the conditions of labor in his country, that’s not 

going to work. 

We’ve—back to the Internet freedom issue here, I think it is despicable that we have high-tech American companies providing technology and know-how that will permit dictatorships like Vietnam 

to track down dissidents. 

This is—again, but if we just have this idea well, we can buy and 

sell and deal with them just like we’re talking about dealing with 

Belgium or someplace like that, well, that doesn’t work to further 

the cause of freedom or do you disagree with that? 

Mr. SIFTON. No. I think Congress should definitely consider the 

current pending legislation to license the software—this type of 

software for the filter. These softwares have legitimate purposes in 

the abstract for law enforcement, for filtering child pornography. 

The problem is if you put them in the wrong hands——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. That’s right, and I would suggest that what 

we’ve seen in recent years is a crackdown on Internet freedom. I’ve 

been to hearings. 

We’ve heard about that today—a crackdown on the very piece of 

technology that we were assured would bring a liberalization to 

countries like Vietnam and China and we also have seen a crackdown on religious freedom at a time when we were told, well, Communism will outlive this. 

They don’t—you know, they will—there will be a new era because the Communists will wake up and they will no longer be 

76

Communists because we will have hugged them and made them 

friends of ours and patted them on the back and ignored all the 

fact that they’re killing their neighbor’s dog or they’re beating up 

on their neighbor’s children or they’re suppressing demonstrations 

in the street or they’re putting people in work camps or they’re taking religious believers and destroying their churches in the Central 

Highlands, et cetera, et cetera. 

No, we can ignore all of those things that show that you got brutal people who hold power in Vietnam—brutal tyrannical people 

who still oppress the population of Vietnam after all these years. 

I’m very grateful that the Vietnamese-American community is 

educating us to this important stand that we as a nation must 

make. 

We need to be on the side of those who long for freedom and oppose their tyrants who oppress them. And thank you for your testimony today. We will continue working in this. 

Mr. WEBER. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher. 

That seems like a good note to end on. This subcommittee hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 5:02 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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SUBCOMMITTEE HEARING NOTICE 

COMlVUTTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

US HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

W ASHTNGTON, DC 20515-6128 

Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations 

Christopher H. Smith (R-NJ), Chairman 

May 30, 2013 

TO: MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

You are respectfully requested to attend an OPEN hearing of the Committee on Foreign 

Affairs, to be held by the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and 

International Organizations in Room 2172 of the Rayburn House Office Building (and available live on 

the Committee website at 1.VV.W...:..WEl gnaff~J:louse-EQY): 

DATE: 

TIME: 

SUBJECT: 

WITNESSES: 

Tuesday, June 4, 2013 

230 p.m. 

Continuing Repression by the Vietnamese Government 

The Honorable Anh "Joseph" Cao 

(Former Member 0/('0I1gre88) 

Nguyen Dinh Thang, Ph.D. 

Executive Director 

Boat People SOS 

The Venerable Danh Tol 

Victim of religious persecution 

Ms. Holly Ngo 

Victim of property confiscation 

Mr. John Sifton 

Asia Advocacy Director 

Human Rights Walch 

By Direction of the Chairman 
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residents and wiping out this historical Catholic parish, purportedly for an eco-tourism 

development project. This was a clear violation of Vietnam's own laws regulating the 

land "recovery" process as laid out in Decree No. 181-2004. This decree allows for 

government's "recovery" oflands for the following purposes only: national defense, 

national security, national interest, public benefits, and economic development projects 

that belong in "Group A". Group A projects do not include urban development unless 

they involve infrastructure for a new urban area. The eco-tourism project in Con Dau 

does not qualify under Group A. 

6. Furthermore, it is a development project of a private company to turn a profit for its 

owners or stockholders, having nothing to do with public interests or benefits. The 

government should have let this development company negotiate directly with residents 

of the Con Dau Parish. Instead, on May 4,2010 the government of Da Nang City sent in 

hundreds of police to block the funeral of a 93-year old woman parishioner, claiming that 

the Parish' cemetery must be relocated and therefore off-limit to the parishioners. Over 

one hundred parishioners, including men, women, children and seniors, were brutally 

beat up. Sixty two parishioners were taken to the police station, where they were 

repeatedl y tortured for days and some for weeks. Seven of them were sentenced to prison 

terms. On July 1, 201 0 the militia caught and tortured Nguyen Thanh Nam to extract 

infonnation about parishioners who posted photos and videos of police brutality on the 

internet. The next day he died of bleeding injuries. Some 90 parishioners trekked across 

Laos to seek refugee protection in Thailand. The United Nations High Commissioner for 

Refugees (UNHCR) has recognized the vast majority of them as victims of persecution 

and granted them refugee status. 

7. After the May 4 raid, the police then rounded up parishioners and, threatening 

imprisonment and other retaliatory measures, forced them to surrender their land and 

homes for insignificant compensation, at approximately $12 USD/m2. The developer 

then turned around and posted billboards placing the Con Dau Parish on sale, in the form 

of residential plots. The sale price was $400 USD/m2, or 33 times the level of 

compensation. Some of the parishioners inquired about purchasing their own land, even 

at the much higher price, but were told that they may not - the only option available to 

them was to relocate outside of Con Dau Parish. 

8. The police continue to resort to intimidation and threats so to coerce parishioners to 

surrender their real properties. In many instances, the police have summarily evicted the 

residents to allow the developer's contractor to bulldoze their homes. As recent as 

December 19,2012, the police surrounded a home in Con Dau Parish while the thugs 

accompanying them broke into it, disrupted the family during lunch, and beat up the wife 

in front of her husband and two daughters. The couple managed to escape from Con Dau 

Parish on the same day, went into hiding in another village and then fled to Thailand. 

Their two daughters later joined them in Thailand. The entire family is now seeking 

protection from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. 

9. This confiscation ofland and real properties not only violates Vietnam's own laws but 

also infringes on the properties of citizens of other countries. Many members of our 
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Association are US citizens; we have retained our original ownership of real properties in 

Con Dau Parish while allowing relatives to live in our homes or cultivate our farmlands. 

Many others among us have inherited real properties from our Vietnamese relatives. As 

the government continues its etlorts to expropriate additional land in Con Dau Parish, the 

SRV practically continues to violate the right to own property of non-Vietnamese 

citizens, which is a violation of international laws. This is happening not only in Con Dau 

Parish but throughout the country. 

Violation of International Laws 

10. Article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights stipulates that: (1) Everyone has 

the right to own property alone as well as in association with others; and (2) No one shall 

be arbitrarily deprived of his property. Accordingly, governments have come to 

agreements on certain norms and rules of conduct relating to the protection of their 

citizens' properties: the expropriation of alien property is lawful only if prompt, fair and 

effective compensation is provided for. A number of governments have promulgated laws 

to protect the properties of their citizens. For example, the U.S.' International Claims 

Settlement Act of 1949 established the Foreign Claims Settlement Commission to 

arbitrate claims of U.S. citizens and U.S. companies against foreign governments over 

expropriated properties. The U.S. Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 as amended in 1964 

(22 USC 2370(e» stipulates that the President suspends all assistance to a country the 

government of which has expropriated the properties of U.S. citizens, and the U.S. 

government votes against loans to that government from international financial 

institutions such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. The Trade Act of 

1974 (19 USC 2462(b )(2» stipulates that the President shall not grant Generalized 

System of Preferences (GSP) status to a government that has "nationalized, exproprialed 

or othenvise seized property of u.s. citizens or corporations without providing, or taking 

steps to provide, prompt, adequale, and effective compensation, or suhmitting such issues 

to a mutually agreedjorumjor arhitration." 

11. The SRV's land laws of 1993 and 2003 have arbitrarily expropriated the property of 

foreign nationals without compensation. Furthermore, such expropriation is unlawful 

because it involves violations international agreements. 

12. Tn 1975, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) breached the Paris Peace 

Accords and invaded the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam). Some 130,000 South 

Vietnamese fled by sea and were evacuated by the US 7'h Fleet. Responding to the large 

number of real estates left vacant by Vietnamese who had left the country in the days 

leading to the fall of South Vietnam and afterwards, the government of a unified Vietnam 

on April 14,1977 issued Executive Decision 111/1977/CP (Chapter ll) to place such real 

estates under temporary State administration. It stated that "All residential housing, land 

and properties ahsem of ml'l1ers who are Vietnamese orforeifiners are directly 

administered hy the gOl'ernmem. When these owners return, the government 11' ill resolve 

[the mattel] with them. No one may expropriate, unilaterally transfer ownership, sell or 

huy residential housing, or properties in the absence of their owners without the 

authorization of the governmem agencies with properjurisdictioll." This Executive 
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Decision also placed real estates owned by certain mid- to high-ranking officials of the 

South Vietnamese government or military under State's direct administration, without 

disputing their ownership. 

13. Executive Decision 11111977/CP also applied to the hundreds of thousands of 

Vietnamese who later fled the country by sea (known as the "boat people") or by land, 

the hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese who were sent to "New Economic Zones" and 

the hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese government officials or military 

personnel sent to "re-education" camps. Many of these Vietnamese nationals later 

resettled to other countries as refugees from May 1975 to around 2000. 

14. On the 181h of December 1980, the National Assembly of the unified Vietnam passed the 

new Constitution, which declared, for the first time, that "land helongs to the entire 

peopfe with the State as the representative owner, "thus nationalizing all lands. By that 

time, many among the 130,000 evacuees and the early "boat people" had already 

acquired citizenship of countries where they were residing. There were also Vietnamese 

other than evacuees who had become citizens of other countries whose land was affected 

by the 1980 Constitution. For example, many South Vietnamese government officials 

working or exchange students studying in Western countries were recognized as "sur 

pface" refugees in May 1975. By the time the 1980 Constitution was passed, many of 

them had already acquired citizenship of these countries. 

15. Furthermore, the 1980 Constitution's provision on the State ownership over all lands did 

not come into effect until much later. In 1987 the National Assembly promulgated 

Vietnam's Land Law to place all land under the people's collective ownership and the 

government's administration; individuals, organizations and agencies have the right to 

land use but may no longer own land. While the 1987 Land Law nationalized lands, it did 

not address lands that had been placed under State administration after their rightful 

owners had fled Vietnam. In fact, in a communique dated November 11, 1989 to the 

Chairman of the People's Committee ofHo Chi Minh City, Deputy Prime Minister 

Nguyen Huu Tho asserted that only the People's Court may strip a person's ofhis/her 

ownershi p of real estate, which is protected by the Constitution. The communique 

requested that the said People's Committee return to return the relevant real estate, which 

had been placed under State administration, to its rightful owner. 

16. The SRV's 1992 Constitution re-asserted the government's role in administering all lands 

and in assigning land use rights to individuals and entities. The following year, the SRV's 

National Assembly passed the new Land Law to implement the 1992 Constitution, 

declaring that the government will not return land placed under State administration to its 

original owners once it had been assigned to other entities, effectively nullifying 

Executive Decision 11111977/CD. Tn other words, lands that belonged to Vietnamese 

who evacuated in April 1975 and refugees who left the country afterwards and that had 

been placed under State administration were effectively nationalized in 1993 (on 14th of 

July, 1993 to be exact). By that time hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese had already 

acquired citizenship of countries where they resided. 
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17. On November 26, 2003, the National Assembly issued a new Land Law (13/2003/QH 11) 

along with Resolution 23/2003/QHll, declaring that the government no longer entertains 

any claim for the return ofland or residential housing already placed under State 

administration. This Resolution otlicially nationalized all residential housings of 

Vietnamese who had left the country and placed under State Administration. By that 

time, millions of Vietnamese had already acquired citizenship of countries where they 

resided. 

18. In summary, in 1980 the SRV declared that all lands belong to the State but only in 1993 

did it otliciall y nationalize lands left vacant by owners who fled to other countries, and 

only in 2003, other similarly situated real properties. Throughout those two and a half 

decades, a growing number of the 3 to 4 million Vietnamese who had fled the country, as 

the direct result of the breach of the Paris Peace Accord, had acquired foreign 

citizenships. 

19. As the SRV continues to expropriate properties oflay communities and religious 

congregations, it continues to violate the right to property offoreign nationals. For 

example, many Vietnamese who have assumed citizenship of a foreign country have 

inherited real properties from their deceased parents in Vietnam. When the SRV 

confiscates these properties without fair and prompt compensation, it again violates 

international laws governing the properties offoreign nationals. As Vietnamese 

provincial and local authorities increasingly expropriate fannlands and real properties, 

they continue, aggravatingly, to violate international laws on the right to property of not 

only their own citizens but also citizens of other countries. 

Recommendations 

We would like to respectfully make the following recommendations to the SRV: 

20. Immediately suspend all further expropriations of lands so as not to violate the properties 

of additional foreign nationals. 

21. Set up a transparent process for local, provincial and national governments to announce 

their intention to expropriate lands and other real properties not only to Vietnamese 

citizens but also to Vietnamese living abroad, and allow sutlicient time for them to verify 

and assert their ownership over the targeted real properties. 

22. Set up an independent body to arbitrate all disputes over real properties. 

23. Collaborate with foreign governments in determining the compensations for potentially 

hundreds of thousands real properties already confiscated from their citizens over the past 

38 years.